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An Underground Guide to Sewers or Down, Through and Out in Paris, London, New York, &c. /anglais
A global guide to sewers that celebrates the magnificently designed and engineered structures beneath the world's great cities.
The sewer, in all its murkiness, filthiness, and subterranean seclusion, has been an evocative (and redolent) literary device, appearing in works by writers ranging from Charles Dickens to Graham Greene. This entertaining and erudite book provides the story behind, or beneath, these stories, offering a global guide to sewers that celebrates the magnificently designed and engineered structures that lie underneath the world's great cities. Historian Stephen Halliday leads readers on an expedition through the execrable evolution of waste management--the open sewers, the cesspools, the nightsoil men, the scourge of waterborne diseases, the networks of underground piping, the activated sludge, the fetid fatbergs, and the sublime super sewers.
Halliday begins with sanitation in the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, Greece, and Imperial Rome, and continues with medieval waterways (also known as "sewage in the street"); the civil engineers and urban planners of the industrial age, as seen in Liverpool, Boston, Paris, London, and Hamburg; and, finally, the biochemical transformations of the modern city. The narrative is illustrated generously with photographs, both old and new, and by archival plans, blueprints, and color maps tracing the development of complex sewage systems in twenty cities. The photographs document construction feats, various heroics and disasters, and ingenious innovations; new photography from an urban exploration collective offers edgy takes on subterranean networks in cities including Montreal, Paris, London, Berlin, and Prague.
The sewer, in all its murkiness, filthiness, and subterranean seclusion, has been an evocative (and redolent) literary device, appearing in works by writers ranging from Charles Dickens to Graham Greene. This entertaining and erudite book provides the story behind, or beneath, these stories, offering a global guide to sewers that celebrates the magnificently designed and engineered structures that lie underneath the world's great cities. Historian Stephen Halliday leads readers on an expedition through the execrable evolution of waste management--the open sewers, the cesspools, the nightsoil men, the scourge of waterborne diseases, the networks of underground piping, the activated sludge, the fetid fatbergs, and the sublime super sewers.
Halliday begins with sanitation in the ancient cities of Mesopotamia, Greece, and Imperial Rome, and continues with medieval waterways (also known as "sewage in the street"); the civil engineers and urban planners of the industrial age, as seen in Liverpool, Boston, Paris, London, and Hamburg; and, finally, the biochemical transformations of the modern city. The narrative is illustrated generously with photographs, both old and new, and by archival plans, blueprints, and color maps tracing the development of complex sewage systems in twenty cities. The photographs document construction feats, various heroics and disasters, and ingenious innovations; new photography from an urban exploration collective offers edgy takes on subterranean networks in cities including Montreal, Paris, London, Berlin, and Prague.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published November 5, 2019
19 people are currently reading
398 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
January 18, 2021
I want to first say this book is beautifully designed. Don't let the subject matter deter you from simply enjoying how well laid out the pages are inside.
I found myself engrossed through the first 100 pages or so but eventually found myself skimming near the end. The information itself was interesting and useful for my own research, but the writing is grouped together large, fact filled paragraphs that were easy to lose your place in.
Besides that, if you want to learn more about sewers role in sanitation and the water cycle, I highly recommend giving this book a try.
I found myself engrossed through the first 100 pages or so but eventually found myself skimming near the end. The information itself was interesting and useful for my own research, but the writing is grouped together large, fact filled paragraphs that were easy to lose your place in.
Besides that, if you want to learn more about sewers role in sanitation and the water cycle, I highly recommend giving this book a try.
May 10, 2022
The writing is dry and repetitive, but you’ll forgive the writer these faults when engaging with the depth and breadth of details, the sleek graphic design, and the wealth of revelatory photos. For anyone interested in the way cholera has shaped human history or how the bourgeoise treated the Parisian sewers as a tourist attraction, this book provides far more than just the basics of sewage maintenance.
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December 21, 2020A lovely made book
October 3, 2021
This was a picture book with background given of the history of waste disposal. It would have helped me to have more description of how sewers work early on rather than in the last two chapters and have less pictures. Some of the pictures are too small or faint to be able to understand what they were showing.
May 21, 2021
Yep, it's about sewers. Relatively Euro-centric (with some later sections on the United States and Australia), the earliest sections were most informative. Those covered earlier methods of gathering and removing human waste (or not, as the case may be), that began to change with the introduction of dedicated water and sewage systems. Once you get the basics, the information starts to get a little repetitive as the main lessons are applied to subsequent regions. Still, important and vital stuff, and this book makes the importance of our sewer systems abundantly clear.
The main selling point of this book, though, are the pictures! There are glorious full-page spreads of large, imposing cast iron pumpworks; vast subterranean sewer pipes (and the cars/mechanisms used to clear them!); and detailed maps/schematics showing the growth and evolution of sewage plans and innovations. It's more like a coffee table book with bonus detail, and I probably spent just as much time marveling at the photos as I did getting through the text.
The main selling point of this book, though, are the pictures! There are glorious full-page spreads of large, imposing cast iron pumpworks; vast subterranean sewer pipes (and the cars/mechanisms used to clear them!); and detailed maps/schematics showing the growth and evolution of sewage plans and innovations. It's more like a coffee table book with bonus detail, and I probably spent just as much time marveling at the photos as I did getting through the text.
May 23, 2020
The history of human sewage and the challenges and triumphs of dealing with it. You won't take another flush for granted (assuming you live in the rich world). Wonderful photos and diagrams all throughout. Mostly well-written with occasional stretches of timeline tedium.
October 18, 2019
The photograph of a Staffordshire blue brick, made by Doulton, on page 137 is particularly good ;-)
August 25, 2022
An attractive but ultimately unrewarding book that suffers from not knowing who its audience is. The layout is gorgeous, with stylish insets and multi-page spreads of antique photos, maps, and pamphlets. The text proceeds more along the lines of a textbook, however, relaying names and dates but providing little of the drama that must have accompanied these massive constructions projects. As in many a textbook, the photos lack context, as if the author expected there to be a professor to explain, and it is unclear to me why most of them were included. It's great to see a few photos of sewers and get an idea of their scale, but do I really need to see dozens of them? I was interested in the sewer and water maps included for each city and maybe learning something about how the lines were laid based on topography, but they were too small to be readable and there was no accompanying explanation of the significance of the maps. The photos of drinking water from different parts of London under microscope also initially interested me, but there was no legend of the different bacteria or even anything highlighting which were the most disease-ridden parts of town (presumably some bacteria are harmless so I wouldn't want to assume based on density). I got the impression that the author had done a bunch of research and didn't want to "waste" it so included everything, but I think it would have been better to include just the salient photos and have a website with the full collection. Then he could have provided more context for each photo. How this book doesn't cost $100 is beyond me.
As far as info, I learned a few tidbits, but I didn't like the way the book was arranged by place (Paris, then London, then the rest of the world). I think it would have been more illuminating had it been chronological, comparing cities within each chapter. I tried to compile my own tables based on the book, but I'm not sure these dates are necessarily comparable. Halliday seems to be considering a city's first comprehensive sewer system one that handles human waste and accounts for a clean drinking water source, and I believe that's what the dates below indicate, but it's a little fuzzy to me, since some of the sewer systems were designed right off the bat to treat the waste, while others simply transported it far away before dumping it and only later built treatment plants. For example, he notes that Philadelphia had underground sewers in 1740, but it gets no further mention presumably because it simply started treating its outflow and drinking water rather than building a new sewer system.
Sewer system construction dates (built to handle human waste):
Liverpool 1848-1869
New York 1850-1900
Paris 1855-1859
London 1858-1868
Frankfurt 1867
Berlin 1873-1893
DC 1870s
Boston 1877-1884 (privately owned in 1700s)
Tokyo (partial) 1884
LA 1887
Melbourne 1892-1897
Prague 1895-1906
Baltimore 1907-1915 (separate stormwater)
Sewage treatment plant dates:
Sydney 1885
Berlin 1893
Prague 1906
Baltimore 1915
Philadelphia 1923
DC 1938
LA 1950
Boston 1952
Notes:
*Paris and London used egg-shaped sewers where the bottom was narrow so they would flow quickly even when the volume was lower since it was concentrated in the bottom.
*Haussman’s Paris system cost five times as much as Bazalgette’s London system (£100 vs. £21 million), despite being less comprehensive and for two-thirds the population.
*Sewage had always been used as fertilizer, but as farms moved farther away from cities and guano began to be imported, nightsoilmen had a harder time and rivers got more polluted. This, along with flushing toilets, which add a bunch of extra water to the waste, was the impetus for sewers, but the first sewer systems just discharged everything into streams where they would run to the ocean. People objected that this was wasting fertilizer, and eventually these were updated to separate and deodorize the liquid with lime to release and send the solids to farms.
*Sewers pretty much eliminated cholera in cities. London’s last outbreak (1866) was in the only part of the city where the sewer construction was not yet complete (Whitechapel).
*Miasma theory remained popular even after sewers eliminated cholera in cities since in addition to preventing contamination of drinking water they also removed bad odors.
*Royal Doulton made most of the glazed earthenware sewer pipe as well as distinctive watertight bricks of blue Staffordshire clay fired at high temperatures for the larger collector sewers
*Adorable commemorative William Lindley album made by his son (p. 148-9)
*Sewers were used to pass from East to West Germany.
*Chicago’s 39th St sewer was the largest in the world in 1912.
*% of population using septic tanks: France 20%, Ireland 27%, U.S. 25%
As far as info, I learned a few tidbits, but I didn't like the way the book was arranged by place (Paris, then London, then the rest of the world). I think it would have been more illuminating had it been chronological, comparing cities within each chapter. I tried to compile my own tables based on the book, but I'm not sure these dates are necessarily comparable. Halliday seems to be considering a city's first comprehensive sewer system one that handles human waste and accounts for a clean drinking water source, and I believe that's what the dates below indicate, but it's a little fuzzy to me, since some of the sewer systems were designed right off the bat to treat the waste, while others simply transported it far away before dumping it and only later built treatment plants. For example, he notes that Philadelphia had underground sewers in 1740, but it gets no further mention presumably because it simply started treating its outflow and drinking water rather than building a new sewer system.
Sewer system construction dates (built to handle human waste):
Liverpool 1848-1869
New York 1850-1900
Paris 1855-1859
London 1858-1868
Frankfurt 1867
Berlin 1873-1893
DC 1870s
Boston 1877-1884 (privately owned in 1700s)
Tokyo (partial) 1884
LA 1887
Melbourne 1892-1897
Prague 1895-1906
Baltimore 1907-1915 (separate stormwater)
Sewage treatment plant dates:
Sydney 1885
Berlin 1893
Prague 1906
Baltimore 1915
Philadelphia 1923
DC 1938
LA 1950
Boston 1952
Notes:
*Paris and London used egg-shaped sewers where the bottom was narrow so they would flow quickly even when the volume was lower since it was concentrated in the bottom.
*Haussman’s Paris system cost five times as much as Bazalgette’s London system (£100 vs. £21 million), despite being less comprehensive and for two-thirds the population.
*Sewage had always been used as fertilizer, but as farms moved farther away from cities and guano began to be imported, nightsoilmen had a harder time and rivers got more polluted. This, along with flushing toilets, which add a bunch of extra water to the waste, was the impetus for sewers, but the first sewer systems just discharged everything into streams where they would run to the ocean. People objected that this was wasting fertilizer, and eventually these were updated to separate and deodorize the liquid with lime to release and send the solids to farms.
*Sewers pretty much eliminated cholera in cities. London’s last outbreak (1866) was in the only part of the city where the sewer construction was not yet complete (Whitechapel).
*Miasma theory remained popular even after sewers eliminated cholera in cities since in addition to preventing contamination of drinking water they also removed bad odors.
*Royal Doulton made most of the glazed earthenware sewer pipe as well as distinctive watertight bricks of blue Staffordshire clay fired at high temperatures for the larger collector sewers
*Adorable commemorative William Lindley album made by his son (p. 148-9)
*Sewers were used to pass from East to West Germany.
*Chicago’s 39th St sewer was the largest in the world in 1912.
*% of population using septic tanks: France 20%, Ireland 27%, U.S. 25%
August 27, 2022
This book read mostly like a textbook but with a bit more “human interest” mixed in. I learned so much but regrettably, many of the descriptions for the numerous illustrations and photographs were typed in a teeny tiny font going up the margin so that you had to turn the book to read the words, and often on a background color darker than white — very frustrating!
I loved that the author covered nearly every continent to include many countries and numerous cities. Information was included beginning with water-borne diseases, the origins of sewers, then their development over time, and a generally good description of how sewage is treated.
It’s a subject I’m sure most people don’t think about, but it is certainly a big part of the health and infrastructure of any community and worth understanding and appreciating.
I loved that the author covered nearly every continent to include many countries and numerous cities. Information was included beginning with water-borne diseases, the origins of sewers, then their development over time, and a generally good description of how sewage is treated.
It’s a subject I’m sure most people don’t think about, but it is certainly a big part of the health and infrastructure of any community and worth understanding and appreciating.
July 20, 2022
Been one of those months where I just cannot pick up a book and stay dedicated to reading, but I forced myself to sit down and finish this tonight. I really enjoyed the illustrations- maps, images, drawings, diagrams, and more- all displaying the intricately beautiful complexities of sewer systems. This book is an academic's picture book, prefect for a coffee table book. Interesting facts and communication of information combined with beautiful things to look at. It has inspired fun conversation with friends as it has been my coffee table book for the past month.
June 14, 2022
Gorgeous pictures. Although I was not at all sure of what I was looking at in most any of them.
This nonfic is about our beautiful sewers and how they mostly keep us dry and odor-free. And their 300 year journey to doing that bigger and better.
Engineers, man. They got ideas.
Also I'm gonna keep using my wet wipes but I guess I need to find a biodegradable version, if that exists yet.
This nonfic is about our beautiful sewers and how they mostly keep us dry and odor-free. And their 300 year journey to doing that bigger and better.
Engineers, man. They got ideas.
Also I'm gonna keep using my wet wipes but I guess I need to find a biodegradable version, if that exists yet.
January 18, 2020
This is a beautiful book to own. It’s a nice hardback with printing on the actual book rather than a dust cover. The spine is gorgeous. When you open it it’s full of enticing black and white photos and maps. I will admit I bought the book because of its looks. When you read it the writing is pedestrian, the photos are often too small and quotes are underlined for no reason. But a fascinating subject and a beautiful package so four stars.
May 29, 2021
This is not only a very good read with great history and fantastic technical information, but it is an absolutely gorgeous book! So many wonderful illustrations, historic photos and technical drawings in a magnificently designed book!
October 6, 2021
Book is not too in depth on the engineering, but it is a nice overview of the history of how the conveyance and treatment of wastewater has changed. About half the book is photos and drawings. It is worth reading the book for the photos and drawings alone.
February 12, 2022
That is such an exciting read! It covers waste disposal systems from early civilisations to modern world. The book is reach in photos and plans and covers all major developments in the history of sewers. Well-written, full of facts, thoroughly researched. It has been fun reading it.
October 23, 2022
An interesting book let down by the tiny prints and pixelated photographs which are too small to view correctly (my eyesight is fine btw!!)
This could have been really good, but sadly I felt very disappointed with ir
This could have been really good, but sadly I felt very disappointed with ir
December 17, 2025
Good, in depth history of human waste management. Touched on many cities across the world and the wide variety of ways sewage is handled and why places switched to modern systems when they did. I’ll be looking for a Chicago-centric book in the future.
January 5, 2020
Excellent interesting book, albeit with a few errors, mostly in unit conversions. There are loads of interesting photos but most are too small for maximum enjoyment. Still gets five stars!
June 19, 2020
A thorough compendium of the history of sewers in the world, with an abundance of photos.
July 18, 2020
Nice light summer reading & not only for budding Nortons. A bit too artsy on the layout but I did learn a lot about something which is very necessary.
September 18, 2020
Really interesting journey through history of sewers. Essential social history
November 24, 2020
The writing is engaging - it's a page turner - but it's the design of this book that amazes, and that turns this into an art book. To see such love put into anything is moving. Also, it smells great!
February 7, 2021
Neat pictures! My only complaint is the pictures are sometimes too small. But to make them big enough this would have to be a drafting-table sized book (like a coffee table book, but for engineers).
November 9, 2021
Great pictures and illustrations
December 2, 2021
Really fascinating look into sewers and the history of them.
January 10, 2022
A beautiful book with great info! Gorgeous plate pages and a nice mixture of international ancient, late 1800s, and future sewer infrastructure.
December 8, 2022
Really neat pictures, the text was alright.
January 1, 2024
I randomly came across this book and was really pleased with it. It was a fascinating look inside sewer systems and how they began. The photos and history are very interesting.
November 4, 2020
I originally thought this was an actual book, and felt some disappointment at finding it to be more "coffee table" variety...and confusion about who covered the cost of printing so many photos of sewers. The author must double as a graphic designer, because the best part of this book is the kaleidoscopic arrangement of old photographs. The most engaging writing focuses on London and Paris's early sewers, and there are some frankly beautiful photos of them (Staffordshire blue brick, damn). There are various tangents relating to other countries' sewers, but the author would have done well to focus on just England/France.
Although the photos made this a fun and quick read, I think the subject deserves a full micro-history!
Although the photos made this a fun and quick read, I think the subject deserves a full micro-history!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews