While a book of this sort cries out for illustrations, rarely has the call been so successfully met. Both publisher and author deserve commendation for this effort. Less successful is the index, which is alphabetically arranged according to topic, forcing readers to consult more than one topic to identify all relevant page numbers. The book's organization is also a bit confusing, jumping back and forth chronologically in places. This form of thinking, he argues, characterizes technological thought and is divided into two thought patterns, transformation and translation.
Transformation involves applying old ideas to new objects.
Peters's favorite example is Marc Isambard Brunel's studying the worm-shaped pipeworm, learning how this mollusk drilled, and applying his knowledge to the construction of his tunneling shield in building the Thames Tunnel. Any book this ambitious is bound to raise questions. One important issue deals with the notion of process. While time management, economic concerns, and mechanization reflect capitalist society's emphasis on efficiency and financial reward, the builders of Egyptian pyramids and medieval cathedrals could hardly have ignored these matters. Primitive mechanization prevented the rationalization of construction to the extent obtained at the beginning of the twentieth century, but early builders may nonetheless have valued sound organization and administration.