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The most powerful idea in the world : a story of steam, industry, and invention / William Rosen.
| Author/creator | Rosen, William |
| Format | Book |
| Edition | 1st ed. |
| Publication Info | New York : Random House, ©2010. |
| Description | xxv, 370 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Supplemental Content | Contributor biographical information |
| Supplemental Content | Publisher description |
| Supplemental Content | Sample text |
| Subjects |
| Contents | Rocket -- Changes in the atmosphere -- A great company of men -- The first and true inventor -- A very great quantity of heat -- Science in his hands -- The whole thing was arranged in my mind -- Master of them all -- A field that is endless -- Quite splendid with a file -- To give England the power of cotton -- Wealth of nations -- Strong steam -- The fuel of interest. |
| Abstract | 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. In this book, the author tells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it, the steam engine. In the process he tackles the question that has obsessed historians ever since: What made eighteenth-century Britain such fertile soil for inventors? The answer focuses on a simple notion that had become enshrined in British law the century before: that people had the right to own and profit from their ideas. The result was a period of frantic innovation revolving particularly around the promise of steam power. The author traces the steam engine's history from its early days as a clumsy but sturdy machine, to its coming-of-age driving the wheels of mills and factories, to its maturity as a transporter for people and freight by rail and by sea. Along the way we enter the minds of such inventors as Thomas Newcomen and James Watt, scientists including Robert Boyle and Joseph Black, and philosophers John Locke and Adam Smith, all of whose insights, tenacity, and ideas transformed first a nation and then the world. |
| Local note | Little-305131062364Y |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| LCCN | 2009041662 |
| ISBN | 9781400067053 (hc : alk. paper) |
| ISBN | 1400067057 |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | General Stacks | TJ46 .R67 2010 | ✔ Available | Place Hold |