The subtitle to the book is that this refers to Britain. Almost all if not the entirety of examples cited are British buildings or the remnants thereof. That said, the book is a nice walkthrough of 20th century Britain in its industrial instantiations.
Examples include weapons factories from 2 world wars. One simple self explanatory photo shows a bunch of female workers outside a building that has a mural "9 m/m". They made 9 mm ammunition during World War 2. Another photo reveals a copper plaque of the Whittle jet engine tested at that location during 1940-1. This hints at a lost opportunity for Britain during the war. With just some more effort, they could have deployed a jet fighter before the Germans did in late 1944. But that is with hindsight. In the desperate times of the Blitz, there were very few incentives to allocate people and materiel to a new fangled jet aircraft; even if the preliminary testing had indeed gone well.
The text also describes the society. Like the bleak mining towns in South Wales and Yorkshire. Or the dockyards that made the Royal Navy and the merchant marine.
There are also cases after World War 2. An iconic photo of a satellite dish that summarised the postwar communications boom.
