Force: What It Means to Push and Pull, Slip and Grip, Start and Stop

An eminent engineer and historian tackles one of the most elemental aspects of life: how we experience and utilize physical force

Force explores how humans interact with the material world in the course of their everyday activities. This book for general audiences also considers the significance of force in shaping societies and cultures.

Celebrated author Henry Petroski delves into the ongoing physical interaction between people and things that enables them to stay put or causes them to move. He explores the range of daily human experience whereby we feel the sensations of push and pull, resistance and assistance. The book is also about metaphorical force, which manifests itself as pressure and relief, achievement and defeat.

Petroski draws from a variety of disciplines to make the case that force—represented especially by our sense of touch—is a unifying principle that pervades our lives. In the wake of a prolonged global pandemic that increasingly cautioned us about contact with the physical world, Petroski offers a new perspective on the importance of the sensation and power of touch.

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Release date

Audiobook: August 30, 2022