This is a collection of essays by Henry Petrowski about engineering. I suspect that he was paid by the word. The first essay is about the engineer Charles Steinmetz. But Petrowski wants an angle on Steinmetz, so he spends four pages talking about a doctored photo which made Steinmetz look goofy. There isn't four pages of material there.
The next essay was about Nobel's intent in setting up the Nobel prize, and how it turned out. This could be an interesting topic. And yet my attention wandered as I tried to read this essay. By the end, I only maintained my concentration on the essay by imagining how I would chop a third out of it if I were Mr Petrowski's editor.
I gave up halfway through the next essay, about the origin of Robert's Rules of Order.
Labels: book, unfinished