The Great Bridge Author:David McCullough A magnificent book: worthy of the [Brooklyn] Bridge itself. McCullough has portrayed the building of the Great Bridge as the human drama that it was; and with a Balzacian wealth of detail has brought together every relevant fact, geological, technical, economic, political, biographical. To know America at its heroic best and its corrupt worst ... more »one must follow this drama on stage, backstage, offstage, with its shifty villains like Boss Tweed and his successors pitting their reckless greed against the disciplined minds and moral integrity of John Roebling, the designer of the [Brooklyn] Bridge, and his son Washington, who translated his plans into stone and steel. Not the least contribution of this great human document is its portrait of Washington's wife, Emily, who both nursed her disabled husband and saw that his orders wer faithfully executed--a veritable Florence Nightingale of engineering! This book justifies Walt Whitman's saying: "There is no more need for romances: let the facts and history be properly told."« less