The Great Bridge

History

Print length: 608 pagesSimon & Schuster, 2001

Description

The Great Bridge recounts the effort to span the East River and connect the rapidly growing cities of New York and Brooklyn. David McCullough places the bridge’s engineering challenges beside the political corruption, conflicting motives, and public doubts that threatened the project. Designer John A. Roebling conceives the undertaking, but Washington Roebling and Emily Warren Roebling emerge at the center of the long struggle to realize it through repeated setbacks. McCullough explains the technical ingenuity behind the structure while following the mistakes, schemes, risks, and acts of courage surrounding its construction. The bridge becomes both a practical solution to urban expansion and a test of whether human persistence, scientific knowledge, and civic ambition can overcome forces capable of compromising the entire enterprise.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Descriptive · Direct · Journalistic

Pace

Measured

Tone

Cerebral · Earnest · Reflective · Suspenseful

Structure

Chronological nonfiction

Focus

Character · Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

AmbitionCommunityKnowledge and truthPowerTechnology and societyWork

About David McCullough

David McCullough was an American historian and author whose narrative histories brought large public events into focus through individual character and lived experience. He worked from archives, primary documents, interviews, and broad research, then shaped that material into direct, descriptive accounts accessible to general readers. His range included presidential biography in Truman and John Adams, military history in 1776, and the political and technical history of major engineering projects in The Great Bridge and The Path Between the Seas. Across these subjects, McCullough was drawn to people carrying responsibility under pressure: leaders contending with doubt and political necessity, engineers confronting physical limits, and institutions strained by ambition, conflict, and circumstance. He combined a biographer’s interest in temperament and relationships with a historian’s attention to logistics, technology, and public consequence. The result is history organized around decision and effort, with prominent figures placed among the colleagues, opponents, workers, and ordinary participants who helped determine events.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Language: English
ISBN: 9780743217378

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