Certain Silence

I’m kind of amazed that this book is available/was ever published, since in order to write it the author spent most of the time since September 11, 2001 running around the country taking pictures and asking probing questions about critical infrastructure. I picked it up because I was reading all these books on the history of infrastructure (there’s a whole field of Infrastructure Studies–who knew?) and realized that I knew very little about the basic functioning of large scale systems, like the electrical grid. I spend a lot of time riding the Chinatown bus between law school in New York and my marriage in Boston, and knowing a bit about the concrete and steel outside the window has transformed my ride. The closest equivalent I can think of is Reading the Forested Landscape, another outstanding book about understanding things that have been right in front of you all along, but geared towards the New England woods, rather than say, greater Newark. Anyway, it’s fantastic. If you can, get the hardcover, the paperback’s a little unwieldy.