Amazon.com description: Product Description: From Egypt and Classical Greece and Rome through the building booms of the Gothic era and the Renaissance, and from the Industrial Revolution to the present era of digital modeling, Building charts centuries of innovations in engineering and building construction. This comprehensive and heavily illustrated volume, aimed at students and young professionals as well as general readers, explores the materials, classic texts, instruments, and theories that have propelled modern engineering, and the famous and not-so-famous buildings designed through the ages. The book concentrates on developments since the industrial and scientific revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Also included are extensive reference materials: appendices, a glossary, bibliography, and index.