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his accomplishments, Brunel attempted in 1835 to build a massive steamship meant to cross the Atlantic. At that time, no ship had ever made the crossing using entirely steam power. Here, the author's knowledge of the engineering hurdles Brunel needed to overcome makes for very compelling reading. Schiffer takes into account coal requirements, buoyancy factors, and many other facets of the ship's design, allowing for a nontechnical reader to fully understand why Brunel's attempt failed.In all of the chapters in this book, Schiffer does an outstanding job explaining the technology to the layperson reader. Readers who enjoy learning about the history of technology initiatives will thoroughly enjoy Spectacular Flops. Schiffer's choices of the different technological failures are particularly well thought out, described, and chosen. Readers of technology histories will be rewarded by learning about less commonly examined technologies that they might never have discovered. The book would have benefited from linking subsequent technological successes based on the highlighted failed efforts. In chapter 6, for example, regarding the French initiative to build the Panama Canal, Schiffer identifies the endemic problem of tropical diseases and correctly recognizes the high mortality rate suffered by the workers; he neglects to mention the fact that the American effort that succeeded the French failure concentrated on mosquito eradication prior to commencing any actual excavation work. The flops Schiffer documents so vividly are a normal part of technological developments. It would have been helpful if he linked the losers to a greater effort in technological achievements. The failures Schiffer describes often paved the way for new innovations that shaped society. It would have been helpful if he had explicitly made that link in the text.Howard Schneider is a doctoral candidate studying the history of technology at the University at Albany, SUNY. He has worked in the field of information technology for more than twenty-five years. His research focuses on the history of Internet technologies in the 1990s.. . .