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Force: What It Means to Push and Pull, Slip and Grip, Start and Stop by Henry Petroski
Category: Social Science
An eminent engineer and historian tackles one of the most elemental aspects of life: how we experience and utilize physical force "Another gem from a master of technology writing."--Kirkus Reviews Force explores how humans interact with the material world in the course of their everyday activities. This ...Show more
Force - What It Means to Push and Pull, Slip and Grip, Start and Stop by Henry Petroski
Category: Science
An eminent engineer and historian tackles one of the most elemental aspects of life: how we experience and utilize physical force "Another gem from a master of technology writing."--Kirkus Reviews Force explores how humans interact with the material world in the course of their everyday activities. ...Show more
The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski
Category: Art and Design
A fascinating history of two related common objects - perhaps the greatest technological advances of the last two thousand years- the making and storing of books - from papyrus scrolls to precious medieval codices to the book as we know it, from the great library at Alexandria to monastic cells to the L ...Show more
The House with Sixteen Handmade Doors: A Tale of Architectural Choice and Craftsmanship by Henry Petroski
Category: Architecture
When Henry Petroski and his wife Catherine bought a charming sixty-year-old retreat, Petroski couldn't help but admire its unusual construction. He wondered about the place's origins and evolution: how it was built and who built it; what needs, materials, technologies, historical developments and laws h ...Show more
The Pencil by Henry Petroski
Category: History
Petroski's witty and unexpected history of the pencil includes a wide range of characters: from the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, and Toulouse-Lautrec, who declared, 'I am a pencil', to the great nineteenth-century manufacturing families, such as Dixon and Faber. Petroski charmingly celebrat ...Show more
The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure by Henry Petroski
Category: Diet
Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly sixty-five thousand bridges in the United States as "structurally deficient." This c ...Show more
To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure by Henry Petroski
Category: Design
When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step furt ...Show more
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