Watt's Perfect Engine: Steam and the Age of Invention (Revolutions in Science)
Asking how James Watt got from "the shipyards of Greenock to the tips of our tongues," Marsden declaims on the steam engine's putative inventor in a half-bemused, half-impressed tone that will amuse technology buffs in addition to giving them an appreciation for Watt's significance. Steam engines (specifically, the Newcomen machine) hissed for decades before Watt came along, yet upon his death in 1819, Victorians exalted him in statue, biography, and the unit name for power as the Newton of the Industrial Revolution. Marsden depicts Watt less as an innovator and more as a product of the Scottish Enlightenment, a man who combined an interest in natural philosophy with business. When fixing up a model of a Newcomen engine, its fuel inefficiency offended him. Knowing that parsimony could be the road to profit, he set out to optimize the work steam could do and came up with the steam condenser, his claim to fame. Crystal clear on technical points, Marsden is archly amusing in discussing how reputations are made.Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved