Many of us will often fail to notice the most visible examples of the engineering and infrastructure that surrounds us, let alone ponder its inner workings. This book sets out to give assorted planners, architects, engineers and technicians their due, with its examinations of electricity distribution, communication platforms, roads, bridges and more besides.

It does so not by merely describing what goes on behind the scenes, but why the systems in question were designed as they were. What challenges were involved, and how did various designs address them?

It’s highly readable and illustrated with plenty of diagrams, making the material accessible to non-engineers, and would seem to meet part of the [England National Curriculum’s] Key Stage 3 Design & Technology programme of study.

Some portions of text are more applicable to the US than the UK, and the price is rather steep, but it would serve very well as a reference book for classrooms and the school library.

This review was first published in Teach Secondary magazine.

For a slightly different version of this review, please see Two for the price of one!