Chief Engineer: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge - Softcover

Wagner, Erica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1408837781 ISBN 13: 9781408837788

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018

Synopsis

A New Statesman Book of the Year for 2017

His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was Washington Roebling who built this iconic feat of human engineering after his father's tragic death. It has stood for more than 130 years and is now as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognisable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten.

The Chief Engineer is a brilliant examination of the life of one of America's most distinguished engineers. Roebling's experience as an engineer building bridges in the Union Army during the civil War has never before been documented, and played a central role in the bridge that links Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge took fourteen dramatic years to complete, and the personal story that lay behind that construction is told here for the first time.

The Chief Engineer is an engaging portrait of a brilliant and driven man, and of the era in which he lived. Meticulously researched, and written with revealing archival material only recently uncovered, including Washington Roebling's own memoir that was previously thought to be lost to history, in The Chief Engineer Erica Wagner relates the fascinating history of the bridge and its maker.

About this title

Review:

A classic, as lovingly and meticulously constructed as the bridge itself. It is a triumph of a book (Simon Winchester)

A masterful work of research, revelation and gripping narrative. It brings to pulsating life 19th-century New York and New Jersey and manages to be moving, too (Neel Mukherjee New Statesman Books of the Year)

A masterful psychological study about duty and drive (Books of the Year Economist)

The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the greatest engineering marvels of all time, as well as a great work of public art. Its chief engineer is equally compelling and Erica Wagner brings him and his complicated world to life (Ken Burns, director of 'Brooklyn Bridge')

Elegant ... Yet Wagner's cool approach does not reduce the urgency of HUghes's own voice ... She is particularly good at unpacking the poems where Hughes's awareness of Plath's inner world ...plays back into his memory of events (Elaine Feinstein Times Literary Supplement on Ariel's Gift)

Wagner is especially sensitive to the movement and shape of the collection as a whole ... this is a generous, respectful study (Lisa Allardice New Statesman on 'Ariel's Gift')

Enthralling and beautifully illustrated . Wagner tells the personal story behind its construction for the first time, drawing on meticulous research and newly uncovered archive material (Editor's Choice Bookseller)

Engrossing. Wagner writes detailed, lucid descriptions of the technological advances that made the bridge possible, and the bewilderingly complex planning and calculations Roebling undertook to combine them into a feasible structure. Roebling and his father could be Eugene O'Neill characters . Wagner grounds her fine study of the human side of industrial progress in patient devotion to science and craft (Publishers Weekly)

A sturdy, illuminating biography (Kirkus)

Gripping (Books of the Year Herald)

Book Description:

'A classic, as lovingly and meticulously constructed as the bridge itself. It is a triumph of a book' Simon Winchester

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1408837781
• ISBN 13: 9781408837788
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384