Review by Choice Review
Design Paradigms is a coherent collection of essays, most of which have been published previously in various journals. The connecting theme is that engineering design is best learned and practiced by keeping in mind the lessons of engineering failures even more than those provided by successes, and that historical case studies are a good way to achieve this knowledge. In making his argument, Petroski warns against the hubris implicit in each age's thinking that it is too smart to benefit from understanding and learning from the past. The author's intellectual scalpel deftly dissects the chosen historical examples in order to characterize a variety of errors that led to engineering failures, frequently disastrous in extent. Equally, he discusses why, in other cases, things went right. The contention is that the best way to avoid failure is by understanding prior failures and performing a "proactive failure analysis." Although the book is weighted towards examples from structural engineering, this reviewer agrees that students of all branches of engineering can learn from the case studies presented. Not only engineering students but also practicing engineers will learn from the book. All levels.
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
