Series:

Brief Histories

3 total works

Cover of A Brief History of the Age of Steam

In 1710 an obscure Devon ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invented a machine with a pump driven by coal, used to extract water from mines. Over the next two hundred years the steam engine would be at the heart of the industrial revolution that changed the fortunes of nations.

Passionately written and insightful, A Brief History of the Age of Steam reveals not just the lives of the great
inventors such as Watts, Stephenson and Brunel but also tells a narrative that reaches from the US to the expansion of China, India and South America and shows how the steam engine changed the world.

Cover of A Brief History of Science

A Brief History of Science

by Thomas Crump

Published 16 November 2001
From the beginnings of history, with gnomans and sundials, through to the 21st century and the 26-kilometre underground particle accelerator, this work describes the way that the design and production of scientific instruments has extended the frontiers of science. Man's desire to understand the universe has led to the making of more and more sophisticated instruments - first to record and measure (Arab numerals, standarized measures), to examine ever more minutely (the microscope, the lens, the prism), on through electromagnets, cathode tubes, thermometers, vacuum pumps, X-rays, counters and accelerators, semi-conductors and micro-processors, down to instruments now being designed to observe matter at zero temperatures - presenting immense technological problems in the requirement for instruments that can operate in conditions where normal properties no longer hold - no gases, no electrical resistance. With vivid pen-portraits of the scientists responible for such advances, this book should be of interest to both scientists and general readers.

Cover of A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World

From the beginning of the eighteenth century to the high water mark of the Victorian era, the world was transformed by a technological revolution the like of which had never been seen before. Inventors, businessmen, scientists, explorers all had their part to play in the story of the Industrial Revolution and in this Brief History Thomas Crump brings their story to life, and shows why it is a chapter in English history that can not be ignored.

Previous praise for Thomas Crump's A Brief History of Science:

'A serious and fully furnished history of science, from which anyone interested in the development of ideas . . . will greatly profit.' A. C. Grayling, Financial Times

'Provides an enduring sense of the extraordinary ingenuity that defines our relationship with nature.' Guardian

'An excellent account . . Crump writes with authority.' TLS