Greatness In Construction History

This book takes the reader to a journey through times and spaces to live the stories and glories of some eight great projects shaping the world's skyline. It uncovers the secrets of construction greatness through living the project stories first-hand, meeting with the great builders and world leaders behind the projects. The reader will witness the merger of souls into bodies of the newborn buildings, live their lives, and sometimes even their death. The journey begins with the pyramids of ancient history, on to the magic of the middle ages, to the passion of the renaissance era, down to the industrial revolution and modern ages. The book contains PMBOK Guide, Agile, and Design-Build project management reviews, hence good for both project managers and construction history fans, alike. Enjoy!

If you are into construction project management, this book is certainly for you. This is creative non-fiction. Travel through times and spaces. Meet with historic world leaders. Work alongside the world’s greatest master-builders. Live the sights and sounds of ancient cities and construction sites. Discover the stories behind the greatest landmark buildings shaping the world skyline. Feel the genesis of great creatures and the moments they age or die out. Witness inaugurations celebrated by the entire universe. Hear the buildings breathe, laugh, cry, and at times suicide. Shed a tear for the martyrs of construction greatness. Moreover, if you are into construction project management, this book is certainly for you. It includes a bulk of Agile, PMBOK© Guide, and Design-Build project management lessons learned extracted right from the stories of a host of the greatest projects in human history. Enjoy!

One of New York Magazine's Most Anticipated Books of the Fall How far can a single leader alter the course of history? From one of the leading historians of twentieth-century Europe and the author of the definitive biography of Hitler, Personality and Power is a masterful reckoning with how character conspired with opportunity to create the modern age’s uniquely devastating despots—and how and why other countries found better paths. The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were reshaped and wars were fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities somehow enabled them to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences for others. Ian Kershaw’s new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether those operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders, and the times in which they lived, that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles—from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev and Thatcher to Kohl)—Kershaw uses his exceptional skills as an iconic historian to explore how strikingly different figures wielded power.

Why does modern life revolve around objectives? From how science is funded, to improving how children are educated -- and nearly everything in-between -- our society has become obsessed with a seductive illusion: that greatness results from doggedly measuring improvement in the relentless pursuit of an ambitious goal. In Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, Stanley and Lehman begin with a surprising scientific discovery in artificial intelligence that leads ultimately to the conclusion that the objective obsession has gone too far. They make the case that great achievement can't be bottled up into mechanical metrics; that innovation is not driven by narrowly focused heroic effort; and that we would be wiser (and the outcomes better) if instead we whole-heartedly embraced serendipitous discovery and playful creativity. Controversial at its heart, yet refreshingly provocative, this book challenges readers to consider life without a destination and discovery without a compass.

First published in 1999, this engaging interdisciplinary study of romantic science focuses on the work of five influential figures in twentieth-century transatlantic intellectual history. In this book, Martin Halliwell constructs an innovative tradition of romantic science by indicating points of theoretical and historical intersection in the thought of William James (American philosopher); Otto Rank (Austrian psychoanalyst); Ludwig Binswanger (Swiss psychiatrist); Erik Erikson (Danish/German psychologist); and Oliver Sacks (British neurologist). Beginning with the ferment of intellectual activity in late eighteenth-century German Romanticism, Halliwell argues that only with William James’ theory of pragmatism early in the twentieth century did romantic science become a viable counter-tradition to strictly empirical science. Stimulated by debates over rival models of consciousness and renewed interest in theories of the self, Halliwell reveals that in their challenge to Freud’s adoption of ideas from nineteenth-century natural science, these thinkers have enlarged the possibilities of romantic science for bridging the perceived gulf between the arts and sciences.