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The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems (2010)

by Henry Petroski(Favorite Author)

3.27 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307272451 (ISBN13: 9780307272454)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Knopf

review 1: You have to give the author credit. He does a very good job writing about technical issues in a way that everybody can understand. He doesn't use difficult to understand jargon. And when he brings up a complex issue, he describes it from the ground up - in other words, he doesn't expect the reader to have prior knowledge to fill in the blanks. The effort to make the book accessible to all makes a lot of sense. And, like I said, he did a very good job.However, the subject matter of the book is...nerdy...to say the least. In fact, the only people I can think of who are nerdy enough to think these topics are interesting are...ENGINEERS! And scientists of course...they are nerdy too.Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are non-technical people out there who think reading about bridg... morees, circuit breakers, internal combustion engines and wastewater is fascinating. But assuming I'm right, it means catering to non-technical people is a fruitless exercise.I'm sort of off in a tangent now, but I compare this book to books by author Malcom Gladwell. It's sort of unfair to compare anyone to a best-selling author but...Gladwell is able to take technical subjects and present them in a way that is compelling to people of all backgrounds.I liked this book, but I'm an engineer. So
review 2: When this book talked about engineering feats and collaboration with science, it was interesting. When it whined about how engineering is the red-headed stepchild, it was a slog. I am a trained scientist, but I have a great deal of respect for my engineering brothers and sisters. Indeed I nearly went back to school for it, but I was told by the chair of the engineering department that the way engineering school works would be hard for my learning style to work with, thus I saw his complaints as unnecessary. Overall the whining outweighed the information, so I can't say I recommend it. I was bored senseless 75% of the time, which makes me sad since the title interested me greatly. less

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