This book reveals the story behind the era of American bridge building, from the 1870s to the 1930s, looking at the engineers who designed them and the professional, economic, political, and personal conflicts that occurred in the course of the bridges being built.

In this book, Henry Petroski contemplates bridges. The great era of American bridge building - which from the 1870s through the 1930s gave us such landmarks as the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi, the Hell Gate Bridge across the East River, the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson, and the Golden Gate Bridge at the mouth of San Francisco Bay - called for a special breed of engineer: equal parts dreamer, inventor, and entrepreneur. Since the building of any bridge is necessarily a collaborative effort, engineers of dissimilar philosophies and all-too-similar egos were thrown together on project after project, making for an ongoing, interwoven human and technological drama, including triumphs and ignominious disasters (including that of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which literally twisted itself apart in a high wind). The author helps us see how bridges became the 'symbols and souls' of our civilization, as well as testaments to their builders' vision, ingenuity, and perserverance. -- from Publisher Description.