Review: Concrete from Archeology to Invention 1700–1769: The Renaissance of Pozzolana and Roman Construction Techniques, by Roberto Gargiani

This book is part of a series titled Treatise on Concrete, which is edited by Roberto Gargiani and published by his university, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Concrete from Archeology to Invention 1700–1769, authored by Gargiani, is the first of a group of works within the series that focus on the development of concrete during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe. In the preface, Gargiani states that the book's goal is to document the evolution of construction techniques through archival research. Indeed, he presents a tremendous amount of material from treatises, old journals, personal letters, and state entities that are otherwise not easily accessible. In...