Three FrenchmenEiffel, Lesseps, and Bartholdiwere the moving spirits

behind all four colossi. This highly original book by Darcy Grigsby, a professor

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of art history at Berkeley, presents their extraordinary, interlinked history. It

begins with Napoleon in Egypt and ends with the building of the Panama Canal.

The Suez Canal, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and a few other

colossal enterprises come in between. The book brings engineering into the

history of art for the first time. Amply illustrated, it crosses between the

histories of art, technology, and engineering as well as with cultural and

political history.