The Road Taken

THE ROAD TAKEN The History and Future of America's Infrastructure By Henry Petroski Illustrated. pp. Bloomsbury. $ Henry Petroski's.
Table of contents

I should say it's more of an in-depth introductory wo A surprisingly engaging work on infrastructure, of all things! I should say it's more of an in-depth introductory work to the broad array of motor transportation infra than a look at one particular aspect. There is nothing here of marine, rail, or mass transit infra. Mar 20, Stuart Woolf rated it did not like it.

The title intrigued me, but the reviews on the back cover were causes of concern. If nobody lends their personal name to a book review, leaving newspapers and magazines to do the devil's work, then what you have is certified crap. Alas, my phone was dead, and the adjacent woman who I WAS NOT attracted to was in no mood to consult online reviews for complete strangers.

Ireland - The Road Not Taken

I ended up buying the book for 18 bucks. Other reviewers have summed it up rather well: It's sort of a WTF? I don't blame Henry so much as Bloomsbury for delivering the wrong product to the wrong audience. Actually, I do blame Henry for one thing, a typical New York gaffe: Last I checked, 2. Apr 09, Logan rated it really liked it. I have to give it 4 stars instead of 3 because it is what it claims to be: As a Civil Engineer in transportation it did have a lot of interesting bits of history and information that fascinated me, but the majority of the book gave me the feeling that I was listening to a grandpa relive his glory days while sitting on his porch swing and sipping a Budweiser.

There are bits of personal opinions and gripes scattered throughout. E I have to give it 4 stars instead of 3 because it is what it claims to be: Even if it did take me a couple years to finally finish it. Oct 29, David rated it really liked it. When talking to people who are returning from their first visit to the United States, one sometimes finds that they are surprised that our country is not quite as modern as they anticipated.

Indeed, we seem to be letting our infrastructure slide in ways that I didn't think possible when I was younger. Infrastructure is one of those things we take for granted until it's not there and this book points out that we're not keeping up with a sector that is vital to our economy.

Aug 20, Jeff Szymanski rated it really liked it. I'm a fan of Petroski's work. This one's not his best, but still solid. Seemed repetitive in some chapters. Was selfishly disappointed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was not featured anywhere; I've always considered that quite an automotive marvel.

Quick Links - Poets.org

Anyway, anyone keen on engineering history will probably enjoy. Aug 30, Kevin Dumler rated it it was ok. Petroski is a civil engineering professor and he writes, unfortunately for the reader, like a stereotypical engineer. This book has no common theme or message; each paragraph feels disconnected from the last and jumps from fleeting thought to fleeting thought.

About The Road Taken

The author clearly does not know how to leave out irrelevant information. He seems to just regurgitate anything he came across in his studies. I cannot recommend this book and could not finish it myself. Jul 09, Kyle rated it liked it Shelves: Not obsessively detailed like The Pencil, but not as meandering as The Evolution of Useful Things, The Road Taken is mostly a middle ground, though it veers away in the last few chapters.

Solid, but not as good as a book like The Big Roads. Dry and esoteric However it was super interesting in parts. Has some great parts on how decision making works and some neat historic stuff.


  1. Navigation menu.
  2. Saving Grace (Fool Me Once Book Two)!
  3. The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost - Poems | Academy of American Poets?

Aug 12, Steve rated it liked it. An interesting overview of America's infrastructure history and challenges. Good food for thought as we see how the US was built up and then fell apart. Oct 19, Qwerty88 rated it liked it. Dec 20, Son rated it really liked it. Dec 15, Susan rated it it was ok.

Too unorganized, left dangling by several anecdotes. Oct 18, Ms. Reader rated it did not like it. I received this book from Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review I strongly disliked this book. It was poorly put-together and constructed ha! Maybe it's because the main topic the conditions of our roads doesn't quiet interest me as much as it interested if not infuriated Petroski.

This book wasn't meant for me. Oct 31, Mihai rated it liked it Shelves: For a subject like infrastructure itself a term that has come to describe most of the built environment in which our daily existence happens , I found this book to be actually pretty interesting and informative. The Road Taken was not in my reading list and in all likelihood I'd have never considered it if I hadn't come across it on the 'new arrivals' shelf at the local library, prompting an impulse decision to check it out on the spot.

In the end I am glad I did, for though there doesn't seem For a subject like infrastructure itself a term that has come to describe most of the built environment in which our daily existence happens , I found this book to be actually pretty interesting and informative. In the end I am glad I did, for though there doesn't seem to be a common narrative thread holding everything together - an impossible task indeed given the scope of concepts involved - there is still a lot to learn here about the way things were built in America, not just from an engineering perspective, but also taking into consideration historical, financial, regulatory and political interests.

One of my pet peeves with authors writing about complex subjects is that many seldom take the time to define the central idea around which they base their discussion. In this case however, Professor Petroski does not shy away from asking, in the very beginning, what 'infrastructure' means, then proceeding to answer the question using language that most educated people are familiar with.

According to Wikipedia , infrastructure can be thought of as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions. That said, discussing the history and current state of even the most well known infrastructure aspects would require far more space than the pages of this book, so by necessity the author chooses to focus primarily on roads and bridges. Surprisingly, bridges get more attention so to speak, with elaborate and, to me, very interesting historical retrospectives of the planning and construction mishaps of well-known landmarks such as the Bay Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Tappan Zee Bridge in the New York Metropolitan Area.

Petroski also does a good job of detailing the growth of the road network with associated traffic regulations through most of the 20th century, but curiously abandons this track once it reaches the implementation of the National Interstate System in the s. The second part of The Road Taken does not follow a particular component of infrastructure through its history, but instead discusses other key considerations in the life cycle of components such as a bridge.

These considerations deal with maintenance operations that require financial investment, political capital necessary for getting a public works project approved and funded, and the role of local, state and federal governments in handling the infrastructure needs of the nation. This obligation can result in impossible dilemmas like should money be spent on the most pressing immediate needs such as repairing potholes or to build a new road to relieve congestion. The questions of what to build, where and with what funds are hard ones to answer, so it doesn't come as a surprise that the book ends on a somewhat depressing note.

Depressing because if one sits down to really consider the interests at stake, the story of infrastructure in America is defined by complex entanglements such as politics, personal ambition, irrational taxes and wasteful spending, to name just a few of the biggest problems. Nevertheless, I recommend the book as a good introduction to the issues that will inevitably take center stage once the perpetual neglect of the nation's infrastructure by those in power results in catastrophic failures.

Paint drying is more interesting. I bought this book to find out more about the roads we drive on everyday.

The History and Future of America's Infrastructure

If I was in a civil engineering class, I might like this. The book is hard to read with walls of text. I skimmed most chapters Can't wait to trade this in at the bookstore. Jun 20, Jonathan rated it it was ok Shelves: The Road Taken is a mixed bag. The Road Taken, regrettably, promises in its title and introduction to do more than The Big Roads — to discuss a broader swath of infrastructure — but ends up doing less, by discussing roads and road bridges almost exclusively, and with a narrative that is less compelling in all aspects.

Swift explicitly t The Road Taken is a mixed bag. Swift explicitly took the subject of one aspect of infrastructure — the modern interstate — and told a linear tale of its history, taking advantage of numerous appropriate opportunities to discuss the people and politics naturally entwined with a major national undertaking. The tale is epic, with a strong cast of characters and an arc of progress.

There are phases of time.

The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure by Henry Petroski

Petroski does not organize his book by epoch, nor by type of infrastructure, nor does he spend notable time with biography. There is an effort to break the book up by general topics with clever but semi-cryptic chapter names referencing the book's promising namesake poem, discussion topics such as public funding, what is on the edge of roads — but these areas are not prioritized, and are dealt with in an uneven fashion with what was, to me, not apparently related to any scheme of importance.

Roughly the same amount of time might be spent on an emblematic example of a failed Midwestern bridge as on the author's personal experience of the road in front of his own home. It is clear that the author's professional knowledge of the matter is extensive, but I did not feel like I was the beneficiary of this.

No personal zeal comes through in matters close to his home; no well told unique-seeming intimation to the reader. Strengths of The Road Taken include its reference to events within even the past year — I enjoyed the discussions of important legislative initiatives from the Obama era. Similarly, there were a few careful uses of well-presented statistics to illustrate engineering decisions, and I would have enjoyed a lot more of this.

Petroski clearly intends the central theme to be the public and technocratic process of deciding what gets built and how, and when he really plumbs the technicalities of this, the book does well. I feel I am seeing something non-obvious, and interesting. But this was not done in a way that drew me along, or made it apparent what we were building towards. This is an important and interesting topic, but the matter of great roads seems to be done better elsewhere, and if you are interested in the great diversity of other elements of modern infrastructure — information technology, public transit, sewers, power, etc — you won't find it knowledgeably treated here.

I feel if you are just starting on the topic, the lack of a driving narrative here makes getting through this a challenge. If you are already interested and a bit read on the subject, this doesn't provide the depth or new point of view that I, at least, was seeking.

The Road Not Taken

Feb 11, Matt rated it did not like it. Petroski introduces many of his chapters not with a story drawn from the annals of man's long relationship to infrastructure, but rather with an aimless anecdote about a road he once drove on, the culvert in front of his summer home, etc. His chapters frequently denote no clear separation in his prose, and don't reveal their essential content until halfway through.

Indeed, what is missing is a sense of historical context, a sense of the author at least TRYING to situate his technical and political points within a narrative. Petroski's best work here will trace the evolution of a common infrastructural feature guardrails, for example , but rather than placing this evolution within the fascinating history of how roads shaped 20th century America, he bogs himself squarely down in the minutiae of highway department memos.

Perhaps if this was meant to be a technical or academic work, this would be more understandable. On this side, though, Petroski makes numerous off-the-cuff claims that seem to derive purely from his personal opinion. The chapters on the declining quality of infrastructure are chock full of this hand-waving, Petroski often absentmindedly claiming that he has no evidence for a particular assertion but that it can be supported by a single example of a particular bridge or 18th century home.

He rarely cites or mentions the works of academics or other learned members of his professions. He does seem to have access to Google, but not LexisNexis. When citing an article by Paul Krugman written in response to his own article, he describes each of Krugman's points in his own limp style before ultimately providing no real rebuttal. Petroski occasionally stumbles on some interesting material but the overall impression is of someone almost aggressively unfamiliar with the device of narrative.

Jun 20, Todd Stockslager rated it really liked it Shelves: Potholes and politics Engineer Henry Petroski tells us the bad news: And bridges actually are given a "passing" C grade in most engineering assessments of American infrastructure: His consolidated report card from various engineering groups p. But The Road taken isn't just a litany of bad news.

It actually includes a lively if selective history of American infrastructure, with a focus on roads and bridges. I hadn't read Rona Jaffe in years and grabbed this one when I saw it. What she did with the span of the 20th century along with family strife was so interesting and engaging as the timeline of historical events played the backdrop.

I really liked this book. I like big sweeping family dramas, and this one was set against major events of the 20th century. Mar 29, Betsy rated it liked it. So far I love this book. It has caught my interest. I love the historical references and the family. Feb 27, Barbara rated it it was amazing. This was well written as well as an easy read that follows one family through the 20th Century. A pleasure to read. Feb 02, Melissa rated it it was amazing. Good book, page turner, recommend.

Jan 01, Lisa rated it it was amazing. I loved this book! I really enjoyed the walk through a century of US history as seen through the eyes of a single family. Great combination of fiction and actual events. I''ll read it again! Aug 19, Gowri N. This family saga covers the story of four generations of white, upper middle-class Americans.

Reminds one of Alex Hailey's Roots. While it was well written, some parts felt like a documentary of the changes America saw in each decade. There were also far too many characters, most of whom were broken or disgruntled with their lot. What I really liked, however, is the fact that there wasn't a happy ending for 'deserving' characters, as there is so often in such books.

There were some tragic lives, This family saga covers the story of four generations of white, upper middle-class Americans. There were some tragic lives, some perfectly happy ones, and some that were accepted with grace. Mar 25, Robert K.


  • The Grasses.
  • The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost | Poetry Foundation.
  • When Pleasure Becomes Pressure (A Clinical Sexologist Explains Performance Anxiety).
  • follow poets.org?
  • The Road Taken by Rona Jaffe.
  • Miss Sara Sampson (German Edition).
  • Excellent fiction with factual history intertwined in the story. I enjoyed this book as I traveled back to the times for which it was written. I identified so much with Ginger, being a polio survivor myself, I was impressed with the accuracy of Ginger's struggles. If you are a child of the 50's, 60's or 70's you will recall with familiarity people that remind you of most of these characters. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Jul 23, Judy rated it it was amazing. A great story of generations of a family from living in New York City. Lots of characters but they all weaved together.

    It held my interest from beginning to end. I didn't want it to end, it was that good. I had no memory of having read this before, until I got to the polio episode, which was familiar, but I thought was in one of the other novels. Not I think one of her best, but readable if forgettable My mom read her books My mom said she was a good author. She read her books when they were published. Well she Was right. Strong women, I came from a family just like it. I will read all her books. Well written I would even tell my teenage grand daughter to read this. I remember loving this when I read it back in , and in large-print!!!

    It tells the story of one family spanning the s NYC, to the present. Jaffe is a great historian. Some people will think it's too easy and cliched. True, it isn't challenging, but sometimes you want a book that's easy, and Rona Jaffe's unique take on NYC society thru the ages. Jan 12, Cindy rated it liked it. I really liked the Room-mating season and I decided to try this one as well. The story seems really quick and all of a sudden its marriage, kids, grandkids, and a new city. Jaffe switches and tells the story of each family member including the kids, gay brother, and their lives but it just seems like one thing keeps happening right after another.

    Dec 13, Ironman Ninetytwo rated it it was ok Shelves: An overview of a few key events in the 20th century. Would possibly be interesting to bring life to some recent history for a high school student. No literary value, however. It took me about a year.

    Feb 21, CynthiaA rated it really liked it. What a lovely story. Gentle, but not without turbulence. Characters that are so realistic you know them in your own life. Told over a tapestry of events that are familiar yet distant. Reading this book is like looking at a family portrait and remembering all the things you love and hate about the people in that portrait with you. Like oatmeal cookies and tea on paper. Jul 23, Karen rated it really liked it. This book is a family saga, and I have always like Rona Jaffe.

    A lot of my patrons do like family saga, and this book covers three generations of the same family, and many eras, and issues like: AIDS; polio; the war and family tragedy. As always, the pace is quick and the characters memorable. Jaffe is so readable! Feb 09, Sheri Hanrahan rated it it was amazing. This is a fantastic book. It is the story of one woman's life from the age of ten well into her nineties. It begins in the 's and continues through the year This book discusses all sorts of topics from the treatment of gays, abortion, wars, etc.

    It was very hard to put down.

    I feel it is a must read for all women. The story of the 20th century told through the story of one family whose matriarch was born on Jan 1,