Pushing the Limits

"A pleasure. . . . It is a measure of Mr. Petroski's skill and sensibility that his essays about structures made of steel and stone so frequently provide a sense of that large humanity, as well." --New York Sun

"He writes clearly about complicated subjects, and provides lucid explanations and penetrating insights." --The New York Review of Books

"Henry Petroski turns an expert eye on the technology--and economics and vanity--behind [building]. The most compelling chapters concern disasters, from the collapse to the World Trade Center to the whip-snapping death of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. These essays are elegantly written and consistently thought-provoking." --New Scientist

"Henry Petroski has become the main emissary from the world of engineering to the rest of us. . . . He brings clarity and good sense to his subject, making the enigmatic world of things a little less mystifying." --Austin American-Statesman

"Petroski writes . . . with the observant eye of an engineer and the imaginative heart of a novelist." --Los Angeles Times

"An unlikely combination of mathematical brain power and a more irrational curiosity. . . . Petroski not only can put science in laymen's terms, but also can do so without killing its magic." --The Christian Science Monitor

"Petroski . . . asks us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary." --Chicago Tribune

"[There is] pleasure [in] seeing Henry Petroski's playful mind at work." --Scientific American