Bridges define places, posits architectural historian and popular BBC presenter Dan Cruickshank. Imagine San Francisco without the Golden Gate Bridge, or Manhattan without the Brooklyn Bridge, or Sydney without Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ranging considerably farther back, in this delightful illustrated history, Cruickshank finds that bridges have transformed cultures, economies, environments, and human destinies throughout the world. He crosses bridges built in ancient Rome, timber bridges, innovatively designed bridges from North America and Europe, and contemporary structures to see what bridges mean to us, and looks to some of his personal favorites to tell the story of their architectural, cultural, and aesthetic influence.