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Discover the incredible, fact-packed new book shining a light on the world’s biggest engineering challenges, and what they tell us about our future.

A NEW SCIENTIST BEST NEW POPULAR SCIENCE BOOK OF 2026

‘A ceaselessly uplifting and positive book.’ – Mark Cooper-Jones, author of This Way Up by the Map Men

‘Reveals the feats shaping the 21st century.’ – Chris Broad, bestselling author of Abroad in Japan

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Modern engineering is rewriting the rulebook and revolutionising how we live.

In Mega Builds, Fred Mills – the founder of global construction platform The B1M – takes you inside ten of the most extraordinary engineering projects that are reshaping our modern world.

From a 170km-long smart city in Saudi Arabia, to Japan’s levitating railway and France’s bold quest for limitless energy, Mills delivers an eye-opening tour of the biggest engineering challenges set to change the world as we know it.

By the end of this book, you’ll learn:

• Why the world’s biggest city has been built in the worst place imaginable.
• Where the vision of a single ruler in the desert is rewriting our understanding of what’s possible.
• What drives us to build ever-higher buildings and design ever-faster trains.
• And above all, how the dizzying scale of human imagination will inform the future of the man-made world.

Written in Fred’s signature accessible style, Mega Builds demystifies the complexities while exploring the economic, environmental and societal stakes of building at unprecedented scale.

The trajectory of our civilisation is being authored today all around us, not in words on a page, but in steel and concrete.

Meet the projects and people set to transform our very experience of life on earth.

Praise for Mega Builds:

‘A fascinating exploration of the world’s biggest and boldest construction projects.’ – Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London

‘Fred has a gift for turning megaprojects into stories you can feel.’ – Grady Hillhouse, author of Engineering in Plain Sight and creator of Practical Engineering

‘Superb? Mills rightly celebrates how thinking big is often the right answer.’ – Christian Wolmar, author of British Rail and The Rise of the Railway

Read a sample here