From the Ferris wheel to the integrated circuit, feats ofengineering have changed our environment in countless ways, big andsmall. In Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering, DukeUniversity's Henry Petroski focuses on the big: Malaysia's1,482-foot Petronas Towers as well as the Panama Canal, a cutthrough the continental divide that required the excavation of 311million cubic yards of earth. Remaking the World tells the stories behind the man-made wondersof the world, from squabbles over the naming of the Hoover Dam tothe effects the Titanic disaster had on the engineering communityof 1912. Here, too, are the stories of the personalities behind the wonders, from the jaunty IsambardKingdom Brunel, designer of nineteenth-century transatlanticsteamships, to Charles Steinmetz, oddball genius of the GeneralElectric Company, whose office of preference was a batteredtwelve-foot canoe. Spirited and absorbing, Remaking the World is acelebration of the creative instinct and of the men and women
London is swinging again. The latest design trends, the best musicals, the most innovative plays and films are born in the capital of Cool Britannia. What catches on in Notting Hill, Soho and Hoxton now influences taste as far away as the North Cape and Tierra del Fuego. At the same time, the city on the Thames, one of the most cosmopolitan on the planet, is home to people from every corner of the world and has assimilated many of their traditions and tastes. With over 300 pages of rich color photographs, London Interiors takes an intimate look at more than 40 private residences, among others the Indian-inspired hideaway of musician Talvin Singh and an amusing houseboat moored in Kew. From a 1930s penthouse at Highpoint Two, landmark of British Modernism, via the eccentric home of a Royalist living among Lady Di memorabilia to a loft crammed with sexy kitsch.