If you're sufficiently interested in the Brooklyn Bridge to read something book-sized about it, let it be this book. By the same token, no single book and necessarily suit everybody's needs which explains why some people below complain that there is too much social history, too much engineering detail, or even not enough engineering detail. Heck, if you want to dig deeper onto any aspect of this book there is a fine bibliography in the back of it, and an amazing amount of the historical materials cited in it can be found on the Web if you know how to search for it.One other suggestion: treat yourself and buy the Dover picture book "A Picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge" as a companion to this one. Even though the selection of photos in the McCullough book is more or less generous, the broader coverage of the Dover book helps you better visualize more of what is in the book.