Iron, Steam & Money: The Making of the Industrial Revolution

by Roger Osborne

In late eighteenth-century Britain a handful of men brought about the greatest transformation in human history. Inventors, industrialists and entrepreneurs ushered in the age of powered machinery and the factory, and thereby changed the whole of human society, bringing into being new methods of social and economic organisation, new social classes, and new political forces. The Industrial Revolution also dramatically altered humanity's relation to the natural world and embedded the belief that change, not stasis, is the necessary backdrop of human existence.

Iron, Steam & Money tells the thrilling story of those few decades, the moments of inspiration, the rivalries, skulduggery and death threats, and the tireless perseverance of the visionaries who made it all happen. Richard Arkwright, James Watt, Richard Trevithick and Josiah Wedgwood are among the giants whose achievements and tragedies fill these pages. In this groundbreaking study Roger Osborne also shows how and why the revolution happened, revealing pre-industrial Britain as a surprisingly affluent society, with wealth spread widely through the population, and with craft industries in every town, village and front parlour. The combination of disposable income, widespread demand for industrial goods, and a generation of time-served artisans created the unique conditions that propelled humanity into the modern world.

The industrial revolution was arguably the most important episode in modern human history; Iron, Steam & Money reminds us of its central role, while showing the extraordinary excitement of those tumultuous decades.

Genres: History, Technology

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 23, 2013

About the author

Roger Osborne was a publisher of scientific, medical and technical books before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of The Floating Egg and The Deprat Affair.

Reviews

[Clovis Bonnat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very comprehensive, insightful and digestible overview of the industrial revolution in Britain, focused on inventors and inventions.

[Shahin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book on a revolution that has changed the world completely. The book goes into great details on the main inventions and events that made this revolution happen. I have learnt a lot of new interesting things from this book that has connected the dots in my mind on how different inventions are connected with each other. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history and wants to find more about a remarkable time that has impacted how the world runs today.

[Tim Naor · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was all down to clever white northern Englishmen. Good detail and research on the various tech innovations but the blinkers were on in relation to the wider global context.

[Mirko · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a cleverly constructed and written book. Osborne manages to synthesize narrative and economic history styles, building up an intriguing meta-hypothesis about the driving role of 'outsider inventors'. The big achievement is embedding a range of fascinating biographical and scientific/mechanical vignettes into a well researched economic history framework. And in doing so I think he has come up with a fresh take on the industrial revolution. Or at very least an utterly perceptive one. Speaking as an academic economist, I much prefer this to academic work......6 stars.

[D V · Rating 4 out of 5]

The roots and growth of the British Industrial Revolution.

A broad, generally well supported view of the development of the Industrial Revolution i Britain. It is strongest on the development of the various primary technologies and the factory and social systems that exploited this.

[Becca Gooding · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very informative book going through the impact of innovation leading to the industrial revolution. However I found the jumping timelines hard to follow at points, I had to flick back several times to check names and dates.
It was a bit of a slog to get through and I do wish there were more illustrations of the machines described. However the book was still very interesting and insightful.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and easy read. Lots of parallels with Silicon Valley and the digital revolution. Strongly recommended.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The transition from the agricultural economy of Tudor times through to the industrialised steam-driven railway mania of Victorian Britain is a vast, multi-layered and interconnected, which the author handles very well, identifying key threads in the historical narrative, and cross-linking them when important.
Split into 8 sections, not just the titular 3, this book covers more the technological side of the English Industrial Revolution, touching also on changes in the legal protection of inventions, the social consequences of consolidating workers into machine-filled mills, and the step in economic thinking from a steady-state view constrained by natural resources to a more dynamic, changing fossil-fuel powered economy.
The epilogue sums things up well, reminding us that: "without reliable sources of energy we cannot live secure and comfortable lives." As we face climate change, with an increasingly urgent search for sustainable solutions, this is somewhat uncomfortable.

[Jarek]

First book I read on the subject and I am not rating it until I read some more. However it seemed a good introduction. My major complaint was that it was almost entirely about Britain, and fairly Britain-boosting. Fair enough for a book published in Britain (and, if I wanted to be sarcastic, par for the course for a British writer). While obviously the revolution started in Britain, I would have thought that by 1830 something noteworthy would have happened abroad, or at least it would be good to give some reasons why nothing did. As it stands other European countries are there to provide historical background, of the Italy was strong in 16th century, Holland in the 17th kind.