Alfred Zampa didn't know what he was getting into when he look a construction job in 1925 on the Carquinez Bridge, one of the first to cross San Francisco Kay. Despite the risk, Zampa relished the challenge and embarked 011 an illustrious career that made him a local legend. His impressive feats of iron craft are evident in numerous spans, including the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate, as well as others across the country. He was one of the first to survive a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge, making him a founding member of the Halfway to Hell Club in 1936. The Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, named to honor the man after his death, replaced the first bridge he had named on nearly eighty years earlier. This remarkable story of skill, grit is told through oral histories collected by John Robinson Isabelle Maynard. Book jacket.

Alfred Zampa didn't know what he was getting into when he took a construction job in 1925 on the Carquinez Bridge, one of the first to cross San Francisco Bay. Despite the risk, Zampa relished the challenge and embarked on an illustrious career that made him a local legend. His impressive feats of iron craft are evident in numerous spans, including the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate, as well as others across the country. He was one of the first to survive a fall from the Golden Gate Bridge, making him a founding member of the Halfway to Hell Club in 1936. The Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge, named to honor the man after his death, replaced the first bridge he had worked on nearly eighty years earlier. This remarkable story of skill, grit and enduring spirit is told through oral histories collected by John Robinson and Isabelle Maynard.

"In November of 1989, as workers were finishing their repairs to the quake damaged section of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, an 18-inch metal sculpture of a troll was smuggled onto the bridge and welded into place on the structure. Known in popular culture as the "Bay Bridge Troll" the little figure has been the source of much media and public speculation now that a new replacement span is open and the old bridge is being demolished. In this book, writer and photographer John V. Robinson traces the story of the Bay Bridge Troll from its creation in 1989 to its removal in August 2013. The details of the Bay Bridge Troll are curious: the troll was made by someone who didn't initially take credit for it, put on the bridge illegally, and removed without permission. Who has the troll now? Where will it end up? The eastern span of old Bay Bridge is history. But the troll remains, a mute witness to one of the world's great bridges. Who, if anyone, really owns the troll? Like the Maltese Falcon from the old movie (another story of small statuette that takes place in San Francisco), can anyone be said to own the troll except by right of possession?"--Provided by publisher.

On May 21, 1927 the Carquinez Bridge opened to traffic between Crockett and Vallejo, California. Just a few miles north of San Francisco, the Carquinez Bridge was the longest highway bridge in the world when it opened. It was also the first bridge across any part of the San Francisco Bay. The reason you have never heard of this magnificent bridge is because its opening was upstaged by Charles Lindbergh's landing in Paris! For most of its working life the Carquinez Bridge lived in the shadow of its more famous siblings: the Oakland Bay Bridge and the mighty Golden Gate Bridge. Still, the Carquinez Bridge was an engineering triumph. Designed by the great engineer David Steinman, the mighty Carquinez was built using new construction techniques and was the first bridge to use earthquake buffers in the design. A second twin Bridge was opened in 1958 and third replacement bridge was opened in 2003. From 2005 through 2007 the old bridge was deconstructed in reverse order of its construction. In this book John V. Robinson takes readers on a photographic journey through time as he documents the birth, life, and death of one of America's great bridges.

"Okinawa: the last battle: Here the Imperial Army braced for its last stand. From the bloody victories that brought U.S. forces to Okinawa, to the desperate, suicidal resistance of the Japanese, this is the complete story of the final beachhead battle of the Pacific campaign.

Traces the story of India's expansion that is woven into the culture of Southeast Asia.