Edition |
1st ed. |
Description |
xxv, 370 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
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. |
Summary |
"In The Most Powerful Idea in the World, William Rosen 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? Rosen's 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" --Cover, p. 2. |
Subject |
Steam-engines -- History.
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Inventions -- History.
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Industrial revolution -- Great Britain -- History.
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ISBN |
9781400067053 (hc : alk. paper) |
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1400067057 |
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