Bridges have inspired artists, poets and, recently, some soaring juveniles (especially Goldwater, Bridges and How They Are Built, 1965); the majesty is missing in this dull, disorderly, redundant, insufficiently illustrated history of bridges in toto up to the fall of Rome, of various structural types thereafter (arched, truss, cantilever, suspension), with a last chapter on the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows span. All this can be found elsewhere; a weak structure throughout.