ENGINEERING REVOLUTION

A collaboration between ten authors, the book is sub-titled 'How the Modern World Was Changed by Technology'. It is a refreshing new 'take' on the history of technology and some of the most important aspects of modern development to culture and the many challenges they present to the modern world. We look at primitive ploughing, water wheels, windmills, lighthouses and space shuttles, the development in feeding people and agriculture, milling, the Industrial Revolution and power for industry and society, buildings and civil engineering, a brief history of shipping, the steam revolution on land and sea, a brief history of aeronautics, modern communications, technology and medicine, warfare and technological prospects into the future. It is an account of the tremendous transformative effect on human societies in the last two million years, particularly the last three centuries, the period of 'High Technology'. Humankind has acquired huge powers in the period since 1700. Man has tamed animals to help them in their hunting, improved crude stone implements to create well-shaped tools and weapons, devised intricate techniques of linguistic communication and discovered how to make and control fire. Stonehenge was built in stages over many years, but it was certainly in construction and use around 2000BC. Its stones were fixed in place by mortise and tenon joints, representing a dramatic advance in stone working techniques and marks a new phase of Median Technology in Western Europe. Superbly well illustrated in colour and black and white, 229 large glossy pages, diagrams.