Dreams of Iron and Steel: Seven Wonders of the Modern Age, from the Building of the London Sewers to the Panama Canal

Ms Cadbury is a wonderful writer. Her prose is clean and clear. I had read the McCullough books on the Panama Canal and theBrooklyn Bridge, and this gave me a basis to appreciate what a fine job she did on condensing these two topics.So many history books are about politics or war, which I find boring, but the history of people actually doing something to make life better makes a great read.I bought her Terrible Lizards, and I am looking forward to it.

I bought this book because I thought the format and subject nature were most suitable for a long plane ride back to Japan: Seven Chapters on the engineering marvels of the modern world. Each different with its own challenges and particular history. The changing subject nature would keep me interested during the flight -- I was not dissapointed.The storytelling here is first rate with a good introduction to the historical challenges and necessity of each project -- setting the story in its place as it were. Cadbury then spins anecdotes choosing what she wants and no doubt leaving out a lot of interesting and germane stuff... but it doesn't matter... the purpose of the book is to outline these great projects and, if one wants to, point one in the direction for more material related to such things as Brunel's "Great Eastern" or the Brooklyn Bridge, Hoover Dam or the Panama Canal.The book has no pretensions to be a serious exposition of any of the projects. It is a good historical tale of each one of them with enough drama and description of the engineering difficulties and personalities to keep one's interest.Serious Engineers may be expecting more... if so, you will need to look elsewhere. There are no sheer force equations, analysis of holding strength or geographic analysis of strata. But if there were I probably would not have bought this book.It also fills a vital role in filling in some of our knowledge in these little known challenges that shaped our world so much... I hope I make as wise a choice of books for the next flight.

As a person who worked as designer/engineer for 17 years in heavy steel fabricated equipment this book was very enjoyable to read. I bought it for information to produce a report for my MBA in project management but ended up reading all of the historical accounts in it after receiving my degree.

If you haven't discovered Deborah Cadbury yet then she is one of the best and sharpest writers around. Her text is spare, her research impeccable, and her ability to draw out threads without resorting to tabloid sensationalism makes for satisfying reading. In this, her third book, Cadbury covers the seven wonders of the industrial world, putting the feats, their makers, and the events into context of the time and what they have meant in history.This is the GREAT industrial revolution. The 7 wonders are The Great Eastern (the largest boat of its time a double hulled steel boat by Brunel), The Bell Rock Lighthouse, the Brooklyn Bridge, The London Sewers, The Transcontinental Railroad, The Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam.What I love about Cadbury is that she has not only picked 7 extremely diverse items, (dams, lighthouses, sewers, railroads, bridges, canals, and boats) but she manages to put them into the context of the history of that particular engineering feat, but also in context to the events of their own time.Her research takes her right into the buidling as well - for instance with the building of the Great Eastern she talks about the need for large numbers of young boys who were employed inside the boat, working in appalling hot and cramped conditions and juggling white hot rivets. There were dreadful accidents but a steady supply of labour meant that new workers were never a problem. The sheer volume of workers however never even made it into the day book though, they were never considered important enough.She relates this sheer volume of workers back to all these structures. They were all built through the enormous supply of labour available.This does not denigrate the sheer feats of engineering which these men needed to create these structures. No one thought the Great Eastern would be able to sail. The London Sewers were built in competition with the Underground in London, The Transcontinental Railroad needed to have all the items shipped around by sea via the Cape to get to the WEstern Side of America. As an aside I would really recommend reading Laura INgalls Wilder's book on the Banks of Silver Lake, if you are interested in the Transcontinental as Wilder's father worked for a time on the Railroad and she describes the working day in excellent detail including how they 'flattened' out the prairies by hand.I cannot emphasise enough how great the detail is in the book - for instance, the work on the Brooklyn Bridge laying the foundations lays bare the horrendous circumstances in which men worked, in 80 degree heat at the bottom of the river. Explosions at the edge of the caissons often resulted in blow outs of compressed air which would send a 'fury of debris and water" in a column as much as 500 feet in the air.I saw the television series on this book but was very disappointed. It was reenactments and it just didn't bring the depth of detail which is in this book.This is one of the best reads this year. I would strongly recommend it to anyone. Deborah Cadbury's books are excellent and she is on my must buy list.

I picked this book up on a whim, but I'm glad I did. The 'history' is presented in a light and easy-to-read way that makes this book fun. The stories of the individual "wonders" are presented as stand-alone chapters, so you can start with whichever one suits your fancy.The book reminds us that history is really about people, not machines or structures. But the people who created those machines and structures tend to be fascinating. The ones detailed in this book were (almost without exception) highly-driven, obsessively focused individuals with lofty dreams they would nearly die to achieve.... and in some cases more-or-less did go that far.If there's a downside to this book it's that the chronology of some of the events is occasionally hard to follow. The author seems to jump ahead to near the end of a project, then back the beginning. This isn't a deal breaker and once you get a handle on her style it's really not something that takes away from the fabulous (and true!) tales she tells.On the 'worth noting' front is an extensive bibliography and a really interesting section called "P.S. Insights, Interviews and More..." You get a sort of behind-the-scenes look at the author and a bit of what went into the creation of the book. I would love to see more books include sections like this.All-in-all a great read and highly recommended.