Ancient Engineers

Rating:
Summary: How we learned to do things
Review: I thought that this would be a tad bit different since I know this author as a science fiction writer, but he did well and showed that he did his homework for this book. Being forty years old, some fallacies and wrong facts were due to be seen, but he really did a good job surveying the field of engineering from ancient times to the renaissance. He did not know that there was a whole civilization before the Sumerians in the fertile crescent and around the Black Sea, which was then a lake. There is some mention of the ancient Crete civilization that is rather puzzling and is related to the ancient Black Sea culture.
He uses an odd notation system for dates: Roman numerals for centuries, -xx for before common era, and +xx for common era. I found that I was translating the centuries to numbers to make it understandable to me.
The writing is more interesting than Sir Burton’s “The Book of the Sword”. There are quite a lot of good ideas and his explanations for the quirks of the ancient people, is really good.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004


Rating:
Summary: Good technical aspects, so-so history
Review: A good intro to ancient engineering (largely civil engineering). But the author likes to reinterpret certain parts of history, and replace certain facts with his own opinion or speculation, especially in his discussion of Middle Eastern history. Apparently the author has missed the past 200 yrs of verification of biblical history.

Rating:
Summary: Good technical aspects, so-so history
Review: L. Spargue de Camp is better know as a great writer of classic science fiction. However, this is a good history book.

There are people in this world who choose to believe that things like how the Egyptians built the prymaids or how the Romans built roads are totally unknown to modern historians. This book shows that we do indeed know how the Egyptians built the prymaids. It shoulds that we know a lot more about ancient peoples that some would like you to believe.

This is a good book to own.

Rating:
Summary: Ancient Engineers by Sprague de Camp
Review: The author provides an outline of history for the engineering
profession. He explains how the first engineers were irrigators,
architects and inventors of simple machines. Memphis,Egypt
is cited as one of the initial engineering project sites.
The engineer, Imhotep is cited as an important architect
and mathematician in the building of the first pyramids. The
author explains how stones were sledded to the building site
over miles of roadways. Next, the author explains how
the Mesopotamian engineers built great temples. i.e. Marduk
The Chinese are credited with inventing cast iron.
The Greeks are extolled for inventing catapults, refinements
to temple architecture and mechanical engineering.
The Helenistic engineers are credited with the lever waterclock,
museums and advanced hulls on ships. The Roman engineers
are credited with their artful use of concrete, lead pipes
and lighthouses. Oriental engineers perfected the first pendentive dome, stone temples, the wheelbarrow and the
curved roof. European engineers improved metallurgical
processes, pirotechnia, statics, mechanics and kinetics.
The work is a good reference for any student contemplating
a science project in the engineering art. The book is
recommended highly for anyone desiring to trace the history
and evolution of the engineering sciences throughout key
periods of human history.

Rating:
Summary: Ancient Engineers by Sprague de Camp
Review: The author provides an outline of history for the engineering
profession. He explains how the first engineers were irrigators,
architects and inventors of simple machines. Memphis,Egypt
is cited as one of the initial engineering project sites.
The engineer, Imhotep is cited as an important architect
and mathematician in the building of the first pyramids. The
author explains how stones were sledded to the building site
over miles of roadways. Next, the author explains how
the Mesopotamian engineers built great temples. i.e. Marduk
The Chinese are credited with inventing cast iron.
The Greeks are extolled for inventing catapults, refinements
to temple architecture and mechanical engineering.
The Helenistic engineers are credited with the lever waterclock,
museums and advanced hulls on ships. The Roman engineers
are credited with their artful use of concrete, lead pipes
and lighthouses. Oriental engineers perfected the first pendentive dome, stone temples, the wheelbarrow and the
curved roof. European engineers improved metallurgical
processes, pirotechnia, statics, mechanics and kinetics.
The work is a good reference for any student contemplating
a science project in the engineering art. The book is
recommended highly for anyone desiring to trace the history
and evolution of the engineering sciences throughout key
periods of human history.

Rating:
Summary: So So History, and Not Enough Engineering
Review: This is a well written book, easy to read and filled with fun information; however, it holds a lot of built in assumptions about history and sticks to views that are out of touch with new information. The engineering information is good, as far as I can tell, but there isn't enough of it. The book lacks illustrations that are critical to understanding engineering details and concepts.