The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World 1776-1914 Paperback – Illustrated, May 25, 2010

This books covers not only the inventors but the spies and publicists who pushed the inventor's fruit, ending in 1914 just before WW1.It's chock full of fascinating characters, some good, some bad, some unknown in their homelands yet cherished halfway around the world for the transformation they wrought, NTM the British 'roast-bifs' or 'navvies' in France who's energy shocked the upper classes as they built France's first RR's, and changed the French diet for the common working man.The truly incredible stories of how Japan was transformed in part by a couple of five shipwrecked fishermen, followed by spies bent on preserving Japan's isolation but discovering that had become obviously impossible and too dangerous, compelling them to support Japan becoming a modern nation fully active in the world.Critical industries often ignored, like petroleum are included, in part because their creation and transformation was in just 2-3 decades, as is the pneumatic bicycle rubber tire by a guy who'd never ridden one.This is less about nations trying to keep up like France or Japan, though they're included, than people seeking advantage of their opportunities.You may think you know the industrial revolution as I did, but I'm fairly sure you'll learn something new here.This isn't to say there aren't errors, as other reviewers have noted; the price of the Louisiana Purchase is reported as 80 million dollars after it was previously mentioned as 80 million francs, though the correct US figure of $15 million is given in the book's summation [a quarter being the US assumption of French debts to US citizens] and actual payment was arranged by both a British and Dutch bank, who took the $3 million in gold plus the rest in US government bonds while paying cash to Napoleon who demanded cash immediately, though that story isn't in the book; but knowledgeable readers should spot other mistakes or typos fairly easily.Overall, this a very human story that while some may seem too fantastic, ring true to the potential in all of us to change the world in some way for the better.Enjoy!

A good read that digs into the personal stories of major innovators. The degree to which this relatively brief span of history shaped the world we live in is amazing.

The author has written a clear and valuable text to complement much of the arcane material that is available on the process of modernisation.In some ways it is a return to an earlier way of considering the means by which the modern world developed, but supplemented with lots of local detail to illustrate the process at work and avoiding silly generalisations. We are not submerged in a mass of statistics or consideration of econometric models and the book does not suffer as a consequence of this fact. Rather, the emphasis is on the inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs whose actions helped to create our current world. Thus individual efforts, whether successful or otherwise, are pieced together so that we are able to put together the individual pieces into our own mental jigsaw, aided by the interconnected nature of much of the material; thus, after someone has invented a process often we are reliant on other people to introduce the process into use.

The book provides a reasonably good overview of industrial revolution. However there are unnecessary details and quality of writing is uneven. I also have some specific complains:- Various patent disputes are described, but nowhere does the author give any account of how patent system came into existence.- In some places, like during description of steam engines, a few diagrams would have made the subject much easier to grasp. Likewise, a few maps would have come handy in the chapter about the early railway lines.- The chapter about Morse code is poorly written and is a way too long - and so anti-Morse.- At the very end of the book, the author belittles the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond, as if the ideas promulgated in that book somehow negate the accomplishments of European inventors and entrepreneurs. I certainly don't think so. Diamond's book is about macro level of human civilization, while books like this deal with micro level of our civilization.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this new history of the Industrial Revolution. Gavin Weightman writes clearly and wittily, enlivening even the most technical aspects of some of the new inventions. He has investigated and sometimes debunked some of the cherished old myths and stories about the way some inventors made their breakthroughs and given new life to their personalities, so that men like James Watt and Robert Fulton who are rightly regarded as heroes of industrialization become real, flawed, human beings once more. Weightman also provides some fascinating new connections, like the link between the inventor of the torpedo and the Von Trapp Family Singers, which are intriguing and often amusing.Some of Weightman's characterizations and assessments are problematic, as when he calls Prince Albert gauche but then refers over and over to his meetings with and encouragement of eminent scientists and inventors, but these are minor flaws. The Industrial Revolutionaries is a well written and scholarly history of industrialization in Britain, Europe, America, and Japan and should be a prime resource for students of the period.

Newton says that we are upon the shoulders of giants"; in this book we realize better than ever, that this is the way of civization goes ahead, many genius put their brains, effort and lives i8n order to improve the knowlege and services needed for all peoples, railrways, motors, roads,chemestry in just 150 years change the world, with witty solutions, increasings sacrifices, we herited a new worlda magnificent lifes, that showes that our civilization is capable of doing better things , and thar kind ogf thing are improving every days life for all the world.