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Description edit
If all measures of human advancement in the last hundred centuries were plotted on a graph, they would show an almost perfectly flat line—until the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution would cause the line to shoot straight up, beginning an almost uninterrupted march of progress.... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- James Watt: James Watt, Thomas Newcombe, Luddites, Rocket, John Maynard Keynes, Robert Coke, Thomas Malthus, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Mathew Boulton, Toricelli.
- Matthew Boulton: Add a description of this character.
- Richard Trevithick
- Richard Arkwright
- Abraham Darby
- John Locke
- Henry Maudslay
- Roebuck
- Robert Stephenson
- Boyle
- Edward Coke
- Robert Hooke
- Bramah
- Papin
- Smeaton
- Wilkinson
- Torricelli
- Thomas Newcomen
- Leonardo
- Bacon
- Bentham
- Evans
- Kay
- Hargreaves
- Joseph Black
- Murdock
- Adam Smith
- Thomas Savery
- Darcy
- Murray
- Wasbrough
- Charles
- George Stephenson
- Dudley
- Gericke
- Thomas Jefferson
Setting & Locations edit
- Great Britain
- England
- Europe
- London
- France
- China
- Cornwall
- Birmingham
- India
- Soho
- North America
- Coalbrookdale
- Alexandria
- Scotland
- United States
- Glasgow
- Livorno
- Netherlands
- Nottingham
- Manchester
- United Kingdom
- Spain
- Conygree
- Italy
- Magdeburg
- Philadelphia
- Rome
- Asia
- Anglosphere
- Russia
- Oxford
- Paris
- Germany
- Peru
- New Willey
- Heron
- Florence
First Sentence edit
To get from Crofton to Birmingham, you take the M5 south about sixty miles to Brockworth and then change to the A417, which meanders first east, then southwest, then southeast, for another forty-six miles, changing, for no apparent reason, into the A419, and then the A436.
Table of Contents edit
List of Illustrations
Prologue
ROCKET
concerning ten thousand years, a hundred lineages, and two revolutions
Chapter One
CHANGES IN THE ATMOSPHERE
concerning how toy built in Alexandria failed to inspire, and how a glass tube made in Italy succeeded; the spectacle of two German hemispheres attached to sixteen German horses; and the critical importance of nothing at all
Chapter Two
A GREAT COMPANY OF MEN
concerning the many uses of a piston; how the world's first scientific society was founded at a college with no students; and the inspirational value of armories, Nonconformist preachers, incomplete patterns, and shifting values
Chapter Three
THE FIRST AND TRUE INVENTOR
concerning a trial over the ownership of a deck of playing cards; a utopian fantasy island in the South Seas; one Statue and two Treatises; and the manner in which ideas were transformed from something one discovers into something one owns
Chapter Four
A VERY GREAT QUANTITY OF HEAT
concerning the discovery of fatty earth; the consequences of the deforestation of Europe; the limitations of waterpower; the experimental importance of a Scotsman's ice cube; and the search for the most valuable jewel in Britain
Chapter Five
SCIENCE IN HIS HANDS
concerning the unpredictable consequences of sea air on iron telescopes; the power of the cube-square law; the Incorporation of Hammermen; the nature of insight; and the long-term effects of financial bubbles
Chapter Six
THE WHOLE THING WAS ARRANGED IN MY MIND
concerning the surprising contents of a Ladies Diary; invention by natural selection; the Flynn Effect; neuronal avalanches; the critical distinction between invention and innovation; and the memory of a stroll on Glasgow Green
Chapter Seven
MASTER OF THEM ALL
concerning differences among Europe's monastic brotherhoods; the unlikely contribution of the brewing of beer to the forging of iron; the geometry of crystals; and an old furnace made new
Chapter Eight
A FIELD THAT IS ENDLESS
concerning the unpredictable consequences of banking crises; a Private Act of Parliament; the folkways of Cornish miners; the difficulties in converting reciprocating into rotational motion; and the largest flour mill in the world
Chapter Nine
QUITE SPLENDID WITH A FILE
concerning the picking of locks; the use of wood in the making of iron, and iron in the making of wood; the very great importance of very small errors; blocks of all shapes and sizes; and the tool known as the "Lord Chancellor"
Chapter Ten
TO GIVE ENGLAND THE POWER OF COTTON
concerning the secret of silk spinning; two men named Kay; a child called Jenny; the breaking of frames; the great Cotton War between Calcutta and Lancashire; and the violent resentments of stocking knitters
Chapter Eleven
WEALTH OF NATIONS
concerning Malthusian traps and escapes; spillovers and residuals; the uneasy relationship between population growth and innovation; and the limitations of Chinese emperors, Dutch bankers, and French revolutionaries
Chapter Twelve
STRONG STEAM
concerning a Cornish Giant, and a trip up Camborne Hill; the triangular relationship between power, weight, and pressure; George Washington's flour mill and the dredging of the Schuylkill River; the long trip from Cornwall to Peru; and the most important railroad race in history
Epilogue
THE FUEL OF INTEREST
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Authors & Contributors edit
- William Rosen (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Random House
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Random House
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2010
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: 400
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 909.81
Subjects edit
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