English Church Book

I have found that I love to read historical non-fiction books about great building related projects(see my reviews of: Brunelleschi's Dome; Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling) and then traveling to see the structures in person. As with these others, I loved the historical background, historical context, the personalities, interrelationships, and competition of egos that went into the great race to build the worlds tallest buildings that in the process establish New York as the greatest city on Earth all during the run up to the Great Depression. Whether you have been, plan to, or never get to New York to stand in the shadows, marvel from within, and gaze from the tops of these gargantuan structures: you cannot hope to ever appreciate the epic coalescence of the powerful forces of wills, creativity, labor, money, technologies, materials, and the historical backdrop upon which it all happened without doing the research yourself, or simply reading and enjoying this well written account of their birth.