First published in 1929, Whitney's book was a classic study of the history, evolution and aesthetics of bridge design up to that point.

Reading it three-quarters of a century later, it is a very interesting but very flawed work.

The book splits into two halves. The first essentially covers the history of bridge design, through the early period (mostly Roman), the dark ages, renaissance, 18th century and modern age (i.e. 19th century and early 20th century). This section commences with a chapter on the "art and science in bridge design", which proposed principles for bridge architecure. Although somewhat dated, it still contains much that is relevant to modern thinking on the conflict between architects and engineers in the design of bridges.

The second half begins with a brief chapter on the influence of material on bridge forms, and mainly consists of dozens of photos of bridges around the world, arranged by material type.

On the whole, it's fair to say that Whitney was obsessed with the development of masonry arch bridges in France, which must have seemed far more important at the time of writing than it does today. In contrast, he gives the enormous explosion in bridge technology during the 19th century considerably less attention - any number of important bridges are conspicuous by their absence (the ones that leap to mind are Brunel's bridges at Saltash and Maidenhead). More forgiveable is the limited selection of early 20th century bridges, as (for example) the bridges that Robert Maillart had built at the time did not become well known until later.

From the modern viewpoint, there is still material here that is relevant, particularly to students of historic masonry bridge design, but also beyond that. However, the author's interests are definitely very much skewed, and there are far better overviews of bridge design history now available. ( )