'The best new popular science books of 2026' - New Scientist

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

‘With more globe-trotting than an international spy’ – Chris Broad, author of Abroad in Japan

‘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

‘Mills rightly celebrates how thinking big is often the right answer.’ – Christian Wolmar, author of Blood, Iron and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World


Construction is the most important industry in the world. The homes we wake up to, the schools we raise our children in, the transport infrastructure we all use, the hospitals we rely on – all of it was built and enabled by construction.

In Mega Builds, YouTube sensation Fred Mills charts the story of how ten colossal megaprojects are reshaping our modern world. Fred gives us a front row seat to a fascinating, fact-packed guided tour around the world, shining a spotlight on the incredible feats of engineering that serve as new chapters in the story of what’s to come.

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.


The trajectory of our civilisation is being authored today, all around us, not in words on a page but in steel and concrete, by an industry that most people completely overlook. Learn more about it in Mega Builds.