Bibliograph

Engineering empires, a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain, Ben Marsden and Crosbie Smith

Type

Label

Engineering empires, a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain, Ben Marsden and Crosbie Smith

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 290-319) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Engineering empires

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Ben Marsden and Crosbie Smith

Sub title

a cultural history of technology in nineteenth-century Britain

Summary

This text provides a scholarly introduction to major issues in the cultural history of science and technology in Britain and the British Empire between 1760 and 1914. Key themes include exploration and empire, industry and empire, and communication and empire., Engineers are empire-builders. James Watt, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Robert Stephenson and a host of lesser known figures worked to build and expand personal and business empires of material technology founded on and sustained by durable networks of trust and expertise. In so doing these engineers and their heirs also became active agents of political and economic empire. Indeed, steamships, railways and electric telegraph systems increasingly complemented one another to form what one early twentieth-century telegraph engineer aptly termed 'our most powerful weapon in the cause of Inter-Imperial Commerce'. This book provides a fascinating exploration of the cultural construction of the large-scale technologies of empire

Classification