Personally, I don’t find infrastructure to be a compelling subject, with two exceptions: one is when the infrastructure breaks down, as is happening with greater frequency because of climate change, and two is when it’s the topic of an exceptional history narrative. I’ve chosen my favorite listens about infrastructure based on the richness of storytelling and the quality of narration in the hope that these books will inform a future of better infrastructure, which is ours to build.
Acclaimed historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from historical and contemporary perspectives and explains how essential their maintenance is to America's economic health....
Historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the Battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War....
New York Times best-selling author and journalist Anderson Cooper teams with New York Times best-selling historian and novelist Katherine Howe to chronicle the rise and fall of a legendary American dynasty - his mother’s family, the Vanderbilts....
A groundbreaking, breathtaking history of the Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, helping to forge modern America only to disappear into the shadows of history until now....
This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world.....
When President Roosevelt took the oath of office in March 1933, he was facing a devastated nation....
If you’ve never heard of Robert Moses—despite his being one of the most influential men of the 20th century—don’t fret. Some of the most seasoned New Yorkers aren’t aware that their city, the metropolitan center of the world, was largely shaped by the astronomical force at the center of Robert Caro’s Pulitzer-winning biography. Moses’s life parallels the rise and fall of an empire. A promising young upstart who failed in his early attempts to enter politics, Moses painstakingly accumulated alternative sources of access and power until he became the single person responsible for the urban design of nearly all of New York City. He then lost everything as the world awoke to the environmental and functional complications he had wrought. It’s clear in Robertson Dean’s performance that the narrator is as fascinated by the story as anyone, which makes the listening experience all too easy to lose yourself in. Don’t be intimidated by this mammoth profile—The Power Broker is worth every minute of your investment.
At the dawn of America's love affair with the automobile, cars and trucks leaving the nation's largest city were unceremoniously dumped out of the western end of the Holland Tunnel onto local roads....
The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with....
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Did you know that these 26 words are responsible for much of America's multibillion-dollar online industry....
Power Play is the riveting inside story of Elon Musk and Tesla's bid to build the world's greatest car - from award-winning Wall Street Journal tech and auto reporter Tim Higgins....
In Palaces for the People, Eric Klinenberg suggests a way forward. He believes that the future of democratic societies rests not simply on shared values but on shared spaces: the libraries, synagogues, and parks where crucial, sometimes life-saving connections, are formed....
A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of slaves....
