Oh, how I loved this book. A masterpiece of narrative history. The world lost a phenomenal talent, when it lost such a master storyteller as David McCullough. I have enjoyed so many of his books through the years.

Despite being written more than fifty years ago, goodness this book holds up remarkably well. McCullough’s work is a testament to his amazing skill as a bard, turning a colossal engineering project into a riveting tale that I couldn’t put down. Even with its doorstop size, I found myself eagerly flipping through the pages, drawn into the world of 19th-century New York and the monumental task of building the Brooklyn Bridge.

David McCullough has always been one of my favorite authors. His enthusiasm for history is infectious, and you can tell he genuinely enjoys bringing these stories to life. What stands out in “The Great Bridge” is his ability to transport us back in time. McCullough gives us an incredible snapshot of the late 19th century, a period with values and challenges so different from our own. He doesn’t just present facts; he immerses you in the era, allowing you to understand and empathize with the people involved in this massive undertaking.

One of the most impressive aspects of this book is how McCullough brings the major players to life. He doesn’t just describe them; he turns them into fully realized characters. You get to know their strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, and fears. Whether they’re friends, enemies, or somewhere in between, McCullough makes you feel like you’re right there with them, facing the same monumental challenges. It makes them more than just historical figures; they become relatable, flawed humans striving to achieve something extraordinary.

Building the Brooklyn Bridge was an enormous endeavor, requiring the cooperation of thousands of people. McCullough excels at showing the intricate systems—financial, political, labor, engineering, and social—that were essential to completing this unprecedentedly gigantic project. It’s fascinating to see how all these different elements came together, despite the fact politicians, thieves, and rivals did everything they could to get it killed.

The corruption, backstabbing, and political wrangling involved are laid bare, and gave me a new appreciation for just how phenomenally corrupt New York politics were in the 19th century. The sheer number of payoffs and shady deals that were necessary to keep the project moving is astonishing.

McCullough does a great job making the engineering approachable and easy to understand. From the ingenious caisson method used to lay the foundations to the intricate web of cables suspending the roadway, McCullough illuminates each step with clarity and enthusiasm. This ensured that I could fully understand the monumental challenges and innovative solutions that defined this engineering marvel.

One of the most memorable parts of the book is the section on Emily Roebling. After her husband, Washington Roebling, the chief engineer, was incapacitated by the bends, Emily became the primary contact for everyone involved in the bridge’s construction. For more than a decade, she played a crucial role, showcasing her extraordinary capabilities. McCullough does a fantastic job highlighting her contributions, demonstrating that she was far more than just a supportive wife; she was an integral part of the bridge’s success.

One of the most poignant parts of this entire tale was the heartbreaking tactics that politicians and journalists used in order to sell papers and muster votes. The standard practice these opportunists used was to just start attacking the hard-working honest people just trying to do their job and get the bridge built.

Muckraking papers and opportunist politicians would randomly start launching accusations that these hard working people were incorrigibles, guilty of gross incompetence. Then these vulture politicians would call for the abandonment of the entire project. Like clockwork, this happened over and over again during the entire building of the bridge. Work would be stopped. Committees would investigate. Nothing would change.

It really showed me that little has changed in our modern day. The go-to tactics of media and politicians are still to tear down and criticize. Happy people read fewer newspapers and tend not to vote. This kind of complacent contentment won’t be tolerated, so there will aways be some rascal scaring up scandal.

If I had to pick one aspect of the book that didn’t quite measure up, it would be some of the political battles. While it’s important to understand the political context, I felt that McCullough sometimes got a bit too bogged down in the details. These sections, though necessary, could have been shorter.

This is a book that not only educates but also entertains, providing a vivid portrait of a bygone era and the incredible people who shaped it. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend picking up a copy. You won’t be disappointed.

The Great Bridge was David McCullough’s second. It is throughly researched, and is not only a history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, but also the politics that enabled and hindered that accomplishment and a history of the times. What makes this history very readable, though, are the personal stories revealed. John Augustus Roebling, the architect, Washington Roebling, son and chief engineer, and Emily Roebling, wife of Washington and true partner to both Washington and the project, are the characters around which the story revolves. The price that Washington and Emily paid to see the project through is quite remarkable. Washington’s intellectual powers, the knowledge he had acquired by such a relatively early age and the attention to detail and level of commitment he brought to his responsibilities are truly amazing.

In school I learned about Boss Tweed, Tammany Hall and corruption in New York City politics during that period in history, but I can’t say the topic and events ever really grabbed my attention. In McCullough’s book they are provided in the context of a specific story and therefore much more interesting. The book also reveals though that there were worse villains in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge than Boss Tweed. The Great Bridge also does a great job of uncovering the individual motivations of different players that generated the various swings in public opinion and efforts to control the project.

While I enjoyed understanding the challenges such a construction project posed given the knowledge and technology of the time, I did feel there was too much of this detail in places. Part of this is due to my difficulty in visualizing some of the efforts and physical constructs described. As a reader I also couldn’t help but want more insight into some of the personal details of the characters: the relationship between Washington and Emily, the intricacies of the politics and relationships within the Roebling family and the true causes of some of Washington’s health issues. Despite the enormous amount of detail that McCullough apparently had available to him, some of those details are lost in the past and some of the detail provided comes across as a bit dry. Ultimately, though, I am today a great admirer of the Brooklyn Bridge, the architectural feat it is and what it took to make it happen.

Though I did enjoy this one, it's probably my least favorite of the McCullogh books I've read (3.5 stars, though I'm giving it the benefit of my doubt by rounding up), and that only because all the engineering (which is most of the story) went right over my head. I just couldn't grasp much of it. But I loved the people in the story, most particularly Washington Roebling and his wife Emily. If you understand engineering, you would probably love this book.

It has taken me over 2 years to finish this excellent book. That is no reflection on the book, but on me. I have worked in Brooklyn Heights, walked this wonderful bridge. Indeed, I made sure it was featured in my college yearbook. I recall being driven over it to give birth to my first child. I have admired it my entire adult life. But now, I will never think of it the same way. An important book. The Roeblings will live on as long as this beautiful bridge stands.

Now wouldn't you think that a book about the building of a bridge would be rather dry and uninteresting? Not if it is written by historian David McCullough, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. An amazing amount of research has gone into this history of the Brooklyn Bridge.....from the dream of a father (John Roebling) to a reality by the son (Washington Roebling). We sometimes take for granted such icons as this bridge spanning the East River and never realize what it takes to make an idea a reality.....the "bends" caused by being in the caissons which killed and crippled, the involvement of "Boss" Tweed and the political machinations that surrounded the project. This is beautifully written and almost reads like fiction. It will have you from page 1 and I highly recommend it to any reader, regardless of your favorite genre.....it is that good!!

The story of the building of the Brooklyn bridge was fascinating and written so that the non-engineer could appreciate and understand this revolutionary project. The politics that factored into the making of the bridge were presented as a "who-dun-it" of it's day. This history, like all great histories, is written as a story that takes the reader to 'that' moment. I greatly enjoyed this book!

This is a giant book more than 20 hours in the audible format. And because it is lengthy there are quite a few memorable lines and moments in the book. But because I was listening to it I did not have a way to underline the lines and save them in the notes. This particular audible version has a new preface read by the author. I thought the practice and the epilogue were the best parts of the book.

The book covers a whole lot more than just the building of the Brooklyn Bridge which happened between 1870 and 1880. The book covers a whole lot of history and biography of the era. It is all tangential of course and quite legitimately included. Mccullough is a noted and excellent either. You have to allow him some latitude! The book was also quite detailed in its descriptions of the engineering aspects of the building of the bridge. If I had been reading this on a written page, I am not sure that I would have made it. But because I was listening I could just let my mouth hang open and my brain be overwhelmed as the words flowed on. This is actually the main Reason I only give it three stars. This might be a book that would be good to read in the abridged version!

One of the interesting and mysterious aspects of the book is that the bridge was constructed during a time of great political corruption in New York City with boss Tweed and Tamany Hall. The story of the bridge includes many disasters and problems. The workers worked under difficult circumstances mostly being of The immigrant population. Somehow in the midst of that Washington Roebling the chief architect and engineer is portrayed as an honest and good hearted man. Workers did die building bridges routinely and the Bends was a common problem that was not understood As workers toiled in conditions with significant compressed air pressure constructing the foundations of the two towers. Washington Roebling himself spent a good deal of time in those same conditions and his health suffered as well.

Washington Roeblings family made a fortune manufacturing iron and steel products including the strands of wire that formed the cables on suspension bridges. The going wage of the basic workers on the bridge jobs were two dollars an hour. But that is not what the book is about. There is no judgment of the bosses Doing well while the working class struggled.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a steel-wire suspension bridge. Construction began in 1870, with the bridge opening in 1883. The information about the construction presented was very well researched and interesting to learn about. I didn't know much about bridges before reading this book, but I do appreciate beautiful architecture. I think that this bridge is both beautiful and iconic. It has been in many films and television shows, and the site of all kinds of marches and other things. I also really enjoy the work of this author and was not disappointed in the writing of this book at all.

My connections to the Brooklyn Bridge come from my Dad and his parents. They lived in Brooklyn. I’ve been partial to the bridge, the city, the neighborhoods, and the people. When I had an opportunity to drive across the bridge with my daughters, I took it even as it added miles and minutes to our route. I read David McCullough’s The Great Bridge because of curiosity and a sense of obligation. Unfortunately, the book was too much of a potentially good thing.

McCullough spared no expense with personal details about the characters involved with bridge building, from politicians to laborers. He followed (and shared) the political shenanigans with a magnifying glass. A chapter allegedly about Emily Roebling, Washington Roebling’s wife, was as much about her brother and political infighting as it was about her. And as a non-engineer, I was lost with his detailed descriptions of materials, tools, and parts of the bridge. More diagrams beyond the few bookended by portraits would have made this rich text even more accessible and interesting to me. Overall, the level of detail was overwhelming.

I applaud his research and it’s easy to say I question the book’s editing. Yet I enjoyed the two chapters he used to explain “caisson disease,” which was the compression sickness men experienced digging in the bases of the bridge towers, and the doctor who was hired initially to address it. I enjoyed reading the minutiae that aligned with my interests; clearly McCullough included such details to appeal to an audience greater than me. His writing style is accessible and conversational, almost like listening to a relative sharing stories on the porch.

But the porch yarns were too much. The ginormous Brooklyn Bridge doesn’t necessitate a ginormous book on its own; McCullough used the bridge as a window into a broader social history of people, politics, economics, and so many other aspects of life in Brooklyn and New York City in the late nineteenth century. At times, the bridge—its “colossal Gothic gateways to the two cities”—seemed a distraction to the book’s story.

Update to my review: 12/17/21 I got to walk on The Brooklyn Bridge today. Actually seeing the bridge and walking on it was great, and put a lot of the history in this book into perspective. It’s definitely unique compared to the other bridges in NYC. I hope I can go back someday and spend more time but at least I got to see it for myself. I recommend visiting the bridge to everyone- it is a story of human ingenuity and perseverance which is what our country has been built on.


Original Review:
This is the best nonfiction book I have read in a long time. The entire story was fascinating. I had no idea of all the personalities, politics, and work that went into building the "Great Bridge". Washington Roebling is truly an unsung American hero for all he went through to oversee the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.

One of my favorite quotes from the book was: "All that the age had just cause for pride in-its advances in science, its skill in handling iron, its personal heroism in the face of dangerous industrial processes, its willingness to attempt the untried and the impossible-came to a head in the Brooklyn Bridge."

The bridge was built in a time (late nineteenth century) when Americans thought anything was possible. It seems to me that we are far from those times now, but dreams like this coming into fruition is what has made America so great.

Highly recommended! Happy reading in 2015 everyone!

When I picked up this book, I was daring McCullough to get me to read the whole thing. How could a 562 page book about a bridge -- not to meantion an antiquated bridge, not the modern technological wonders of today -- keep me going that long, I thought? Yet I had heard reviews...I had to find out what they were talking about.

I finished the book in two weeks, and as it turns out, it's not just a book about a bridge (that really would be boring), it's a book about the people and events in one of them most famous, celebrated, and exciting times in American history. A time when people were choosing to expand westward and upward; when iron and coal were king; a time when anyone could be anything; it was America's time of manifest destiny, and the building of the bridge was a symbol of it all: east-west expansion, independence, unity, power, technology, urbanization, money, politics, corruption, immigration, just to name a few.

True to McCulloughs style, he finds those larger-than-life people: engineers, politicians, soldiers, seedy crooks, and socialites and tells their fascinating stories in the context of the building of the bridge. At times I wondered that McCullough hadn't been an engineer himself the way he described sinking caissons, raising stone towers, stringing steel suspension cables, and constructing trusses. I also wondered that McCullough had not personally watched the bridge rise out of the east river as an eyewitness in a former life , and whether in that same former life those dynamic figures in his book had not been his own personal confidants.

The only negative that I have to say about the book is that more pictures and diagrams would add immensely to his masterful descriptions of such complex things like bridge anchorages and compression caissons. He forgot to apply that age old adage: a picture is worth a thousand words.

The book was definately worth the read.

The only thing left is to see the bridge for myself.

The book is loaded with information and great research but I found the narrative itself to be bogged down and at times unreadable, unlike other David McCullough history books. I found myself skimming or skipping large portions but I still enjoyed it in the end and am fascinated with all that went into building this great bridge.

I think he struggled to put it all in order and to edit out the extraneous details, perhaps trying to do too much to capture the science, the people, the politics, and the times all at once.

If you like McCullough as I do and are interested in the Brooklyn Bridge, definitely pick it up. Just be prepared for a slow read.