A richly illustrated introduction to the engineering triumphs that made America modern

Praise for The Tower and the Bridge

"Fascinating and informative. . . . [S]hould be required reading for architects, engineers, and anyone who is interested in the special role of structural art in our technological society." — Myron Goldsmith Coeditor (with David Billington) Technique and Aesthetics in the Design of Tall Buildings

"David Billington brings the special insight of an engineer to the study of history. The result is a provocative analysis . . . bound to excite and instruct a wide variety of readers, from the casual buff to the professional scholar. The book is a delight to read." — Merritt Roe Smith Editor, Military Enterprise and Technological Change

They built the future. Their ingenuity, their vision, their genius propelled a young nation toward the twentieth century, and paved the way for America's emergence as the world's leading industrial power. The Innovators tells the impressive story of the engineering pioneers whose designs revolutionized commerce, industry, and world history.

Enter the workshops of America's early engineering geniuses and discover how they came up with their ideas and applied them to the marketplace. David Billington, acclaimed author of The Tower and the Bridge, reveals the strokes of brilliance behind such landmark developments as the steamboat, electric power, and the rise of the iron and steel industry. He explains each major innovation through the story of the remarkable new engineering formulas that made it possible, showing that one key to engineering progress is the discovery of fundamental relationships in the physical world. He also explores the political and social conditions that allowed these brilliant individuals to implement their ideas, and the sweeping changes that followed in their wake.

Who were the innovators? Some are legendary: Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat; Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph; and Thomas Edison, inventor of the incandescent lightbulb. Others are not as well known, however, and readers will be introduced to many whose contributions, if not their names, have stood the test of time: people like J. Edgar Thompson, who built the Pennsylvania Railroad; and Thomas Telford, who revolutionized large-scale bridge building and design.

In the age of microchips and space probes, The Innovators brings insight and perspective to America's engineering history.

"Power, Speed, and Form" is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939--the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison's system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford's Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann's George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane.

These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough--a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With "Power, Speed, and Form," educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America's development and that are still the foundations of modern life.

An essential exploration of the engineering aesthetics of celebrated structures from long-span bridges to high-rise buildings What do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the concrete roofs of Pier Luigi Nervi have in common? According to The Tower and the Bridge, all are striking examples of structural art, an exciting area distinct from either architecture or machine design. Aided by stunning photographs, David Billington discusses the technical concerns and artistic principles underpinning the well-known projects of leading structural engineer-artists, including Othmar Ammann, Felix Candela, Gustave Eiffel, Fazlur Khan, Robert Maillart, John Roebling, and many others. A classic work, The Tower and the Bridge introduces readers to the fundamental aesthetics of engineering.

What do structures such as the Eiffel Tower, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the concrete roofs of Pier Luigi Nervi have in common? According to this book, now in its first paperback edition, all are striking examples of structural art, an exciting form distinct from either architecture or machine design. Aided by a number of stunning illustrations, David Billington discusses leading structural engineer-artists, such as John A. Roebling, Gustave Eiffel, Fazlur Khan, and Robert Maillart.

Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939-the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison's system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford's Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann's George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane. These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough-a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With Power, Speed, and Form, educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America's development and that are still the foundations of modern life.

The engineering ideas behind key twentieth-century technical innovations, from great dams and highways to the jet engine, the transistor, the microchip, and the computer.Technology is essential to modern life, yet few of us are technology-literate enough to know much about the engineering that underpins it. In this book, David P. Billington, Jr., offers accessible accounts of the key twentieth-century engineering innovations that brought us into the twenty-first century. Billington examines a series of engineering advances--from Hoover Dam and jet engines to the transistor, the microchip, the computer, and the internet--and explains how they came about and how they work. Each of these innovations tells a unique story. The great dams of the New Deal brought huge rivers under control, and a national highway system interconnected the nation, as did jet air travel. The transistor and the microchip originated in the private sector and found a mass market after early government support. The computer and the internet began as government projects and found a mass market later in the private sector. Billington finds that engineers with unconventional insights could succeed in a bureaucratic age; what mattered were independent vision and a society that welcomed innovation. This book completes the story of American engineering begun with the earlier volumes The Innovators (by the author's father) and Power, Speed, and Form (by the author and his father).

The massive dams of the American West were designed to serve multiple purposes: improving navigation, irrigating crops, storing water, controlling floods, and generating hydroelectricity. Their construction also put thousands of people to work during the Great Depression. Only later did the dams' baneful effects on river ecologies spark public debate. Big Dams of the New Deal Era tells how major water-storage structures were erected in four western river basins. David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson reveal how engineering science, regional and national politics, perceived public needs, and a river's natural features intertwined to create distinctive dams within each region. In particular, the authors describe how two federal agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, became key players in the creation of these important public works. By illuminating the mathematical analysis that supported large-scale dam construction, the authors also describe how and why engineers in the 1930s most often opted for massive gravity dams, whose design required enormous quantities of concrete or earth-rock fill for stability. Richly illustrated, Big Dams of the New Deal Era offers a compelling account of how major dams in the New Deal era restructured the landscape - both politically and physically - and why American society in the 1930s embraced them wholeheartedly.

The history of federal involvement in dam construction goes back at least to the 1820s, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built wing dams to improve navigation on the Ohio River. The work expanded after the Civil War, when Congress authorized the Corps to build storage dams on the upper Mississippi River and regulatory dams to aid navigation on the Ohio River. In 1902, when Congress established the Bureau of Reclamation (then called the "Reclamation Service"), the role of the federal government increased dramatically. Subsequently, large Bureau of Reclamation dams dotted the Western landscape. Together, Reclamation and the Corps have built the vast majority of major federal dams in the United States. These dams serve a wide variety of purposes. Historically, Bureau of Reclamation dams primarily served water storage and delivery requirements, while U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dams supported navigation and flood control. For both agencies, hydropower production had become an important secondary function. This history explores the story of federal contributions to dam planning, design, and construction by carefully selecting those dams and river systems that seem particularly critical to the story. Written by three distinguished historians, the history will interest engineers, historians, cultural resource planners, water resource planners and others interested in the challenges facing dam builders. At the same time, the history also addresses some of the negative environmental consequences of dam-building, a series of problems that today both Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seek to resolve.

This comprehensive biography traces the life and works of Robert Maillart, one of the most important engineers and designers of the twentieth century. His career developed around a central issue of modern technological society: the debate between two antithetical views of engineering opposing applied science, which relied on general mathematical theories for understanding structures against design, which Maillart championed. Maillart considered structures not merely works of utility but also as works of art. As utilitarian objects, he created a series of innovations of lasting significance. Aesthetically, Maillart shaped his three innovations in concrete to create surprising and often stunning new forms. Providing an analysis of these innovations, this biography also connects Maillart's aesthetic ideas with the private and professional context in which he worked.

This is the story of Philip Kerr and a group of Oxford graduates that founded The Round Table (Journal of International Affairs) in 1910, and influenced British foreign policy over the following thirty years. As the principal thinker of the group, Kerr saw the need for a supra-national grouping and wanted to organize the British Empire into a federal superstate. The group also sought an Anglo-American alliance, and in 1939, joined a world federation movement that would help to inspire NATO after the war. Important questions raised by this group remain relevant today. Can a supra-national community impose laws and regulations on its members without its governing institutions being more fully accountable to a community-wide electorate? Can hostile nationalism be tamed with such a union. Can it reasonably exclude the United States?