In this book, James Gordon brilliantly manages to simply talk about technically complex things: what structures are (natural and artificial), how they are structured, how they work, what keeps them from destruction and what tears them apart, what physical laws cause this and who discovered these laws? Informally and wittily, but without oversimplifying, the author explains the powerful forces at work that help buildings not fall apart, cable-stayed bridges not collapse under the weight of eight-lane traffic, and dams hold back thousands of tons of water. And vice versa: why, due to such phenomena as tension, twisting, shear and compression, disasters still happen, airplane wings fall off and people’s legs break. Thanks to the relaxed presentation, the encyclopedic volume of facts, causes and consequences is perceived as a fascinating conversation that flies by unnoticed and leaves the reader with a pleasant feeling as if he already knew about all this (or, in any case, guessed), and now, finally, this knowledge is skillfully in front of him sorted into shelves. The book is addressed to everyone who is interested in the physical foundations and structure of the surrounding material world.