Contains illustrations and an index. This book tells us the stories of men who worked very hard to find a way to get a job done easier, quicker, and safer. The author tells us about some of the others also working towards those ends, and perhaps why these particular men succeeded where others failed or gave up. Overall, the reader revisits some of the milestones of what has brought civilization from the fifteenth century to modernity. Through the individual stories, the common thread is hard work for which there was no guarantee of pay or success. Each inventor seemed almost driven to bring about their invention, exhausting their time and their resources. Perhaps many of these inventions have now faded into obscurity, but they were very important for a long period of time. Another common thread is the idea of the new invention perhaps being difficult to take hold, especially if workers felt threatened that a machine would take their work away from them. For this reason, sometimes the inventions had to be hidden and protected so that they wouldn't be destroyed. In other instances, the paper work for the patents had to be filed or else someone else could steal the idea with no legal recourse. Even then, legal battles were often difficult and exhausted more resources.