Henry Petroski: 17 books
Remaking the World
Adventures in Engineering
Language: English
Release Date: January 5, 2011
This collection of informative and pleasurable essays by Henry Petroski elucidates the role of engineers in shaping our environment in countless ways, big and small.
In Remaking the World Petroski gravitates this time, perhaps, toward the big: the English Channel tunnel, the Panama Canal, Hoover...
Success through Failure
The Paradox of Design
Language: English
Release Date: May 22, 2018
Design pervades our lives. Everything from drafting a PowerPoint presentation to planning a state-of-the-art bridge embodies this universal human activity. But what makes a great design? In this compelling and wide-ranging look at the essence of invention, distinguished engineer and author Henry Petroski...
by Henry Petroski, Catherine Petroski
Language: English
Release Date: May 5, 2014
Language: English
Release Date: May 5, 2014
An architectural whodunit that unlocks the secrets of a hand-built home.
When Henry Petroski and his wife Catherine bought a charming but modest six-decades-old island retreat in coastal Maine, Petroski couldn’t help but admire its unusual construction. An eminent expert on engineering, history,...
The Road Taken
The History and Future of America's Infrastructure
Language: English
Release Date: February 16, 2016
A renowned historian and engineer explores the past, present, and future of America's crumbling infrastructure.
Acclaimed engineer and historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from both historical and contemporary perspectives, explaining how essential their maintenance is...
Small Things Considered
Why There Is No Perfect Design
Language: English
Release Date: December 18, 2007
Why has the durable paper shopping bag been largely replaced by its flimsy plastic counterpart? What circuitous chain of improvements led to such innovations as the automobile cup holder and the swiveling vegetable peeler? With the same relentless curiosity and lucid, witty prose he brought to his...
Pushing the Limits
New Adventures in Engineering
Language: English
Release Date: December 18, 2007
Here are two dozen tales in the grand adventure of engineering from the Henry Petroski, who has been called America’s poet laureate of technology. **Pushing the Limits **celebrates some of the largest things we have created–bridges, dams, buildings--and provides a startling new vision of engineering’s...
Engineers of Dreams
Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America
Language: English
Release Date: December 15, 2010
Petroski reveals the science and engineering--not to mention the politics, egotism, and sheer magic--behind America's great bridges, particularly those constructed during the great bridge-building era starting in the 1870s and continuing through the 1930s. It is the story of the men and women who...
Paperboy
Confessions of a Future Engineer
Language: English
Release Date: December 18, 2007
Anyone wondering what sort of experience prepares one for a future as an engineer may be surprised to learn that it includes delivering newspapers. But as Henry Petroski recounts his youth in 1950s Queens, New York–a borough of handball games and inexplicably numbered streets–he winningly shows...
by Henry Petroski
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2010
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2010
From the author of the highly praised The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things comes another captivating history of the seemingly mundane: the book and its storage.
Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately...
The Toothpick
Technology and Culture
Language: English
Release Date: November 26, 2008
A celebration culture and technology, as seen through the history of the humble yet ubiquitous toothpick, from the best-selling author of The Pencil.
From ancient Rome, where emperor Nero made his entrance into a banquet hall with a silver toothpick in his mouth, to nineteenth-century Boston,...
The Evolution of Useful Things
How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are.
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2010
How did the table fork acquire a fourth tine? What advantage does the Phillips-head screw have over its single-grooved predecessor? Why does the paper clip look the way it does? What makes Scotch tape Scotch?
In this delightful book Henry, Petroski takes a microscopic look at artifacts that...
by Henry Petroski
Language: English
Release Date: February 23, 2010
Language: English
Release Date: February 23, 2010
From the acclaimed author of The Pencil and To Engineer Is Human, The Essential Engineer is an eye-opening exploration of the ways in which science and engineering must work together to address our world’s most pressing issues, from dealing with climate change and the prevention of natural disasters...
The Pencil
A History of Design and Circumstance
Language: English
Release Date: February 16, 2011
Henry Petroski traces the origins of the pencil back to ancient Greece and Rome, writes factually and charmingly about its development over the centuries and around the world, and shows what the pencil can teach us about engineering and technology today.
To Engineer is Human
The Role of Failure in Successful Design
Language: English
Release Date: October 16, 2018
“Though ours is an age of high technology, the essence of what engineering is and what engineers do is not common knowledge. Even the most elementary of principles upon which great bridges, jumbo jets, or super computers are built are alien concepts to many. This is so in part because engineering...
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