…that the first book on geosynthetics was “Construction and Geotechnical Engineering Using Synthetic Fabrics” published in 1980 by John Wiley and Sons? The authors, Bob Koerner and Joe Welsh, brought their book on this fast-growing field to light just ahead of Peter Rankilor’s 1981 book “Membranes in Ground Engineering,” which, though the title suggests geomembranes was concerned with geotextiles.
One story has it that Rankilor’s book was delayed by lost drawings, and while this may be true and while some prestige comes with being first, the delay it caused is not known; and many were moving rapidly at universities, in books, in journals and in field studies, to provide the core information that helped launch a discipline and industry.
