not sure it's a story of "people doing hard things" but it may go your way for "mechanics of how things that we take for granted actually got built", the book is "Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk"
> a comprehensive history of man's efforts to understand risk and probability, from ancient gamblers in Greece to modern chaos theory.
In some parts it's not an easy read, but the underlying stories are very interesting.
Agreed not sure it exactly fits the prompt but this is a really fascinating book. One of those things where I didn’t fully bring into conscious awareness until reading it: statistics are tools that didn’t always exist, and had to be developed alongside multiple philosophical revolutions.
> a comprehensive history of man's efforts to understand risk and probability, from ancient gamblers in Greece to modern chaos theory.
In some parts it's not an easy read, but the underlying stories are very interesting.