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Nothing is more crucial to today's society
than machines. They affect us in an infinite number of ways
-- provide transportation, compute the trajectories of rockets,
dry hair, smash atoms, cook food, make clothes, entertain
us at the movies, keep us warm at night. But at the same
time these machines threaten the whole fabric of our society.
Automation is creating what seem to be insoluble problems
-- putting thousands out of work, altering whole economies,
stimulating unrest, insecurity, and confusion.
Robert Soulard, curator of France's leading
science museum, has compressed into one concise, dramatic
volume the whole exciting history of the machine -- beginning
with the crudest of tools, the hoe, developed as early as
7000 B.C., and going beyond the marvelous machines of today
into the hard-to-believe but inevitable world of tomorrow.
Mr. Soulard brilliantly analyzes not only those periods
during which amazing bursts of invention were achieved --
such as the Industrial Revolution -- but also those curious
and puzzling eras during which almost no progress whatsoever
was made.
Lavishly illustrated with over a hundred
beautiful and enlightening representations of designs, plans,
wall carvings, drawings, paintings and photographs -- over
twenty-four pages of which are in full color -- A History
of the Machine is as delightful to handle and look at
as it is exciting and engrossing to read.
Beginning with those nameless men who invented
the rudimentary, indispensable tools of civilization, such
as the plow and the wheel, and moving through the achievements
of the great inventors -- Archimedes' ingenious pulleys,
windlasses, cranes and catapults; Gutenberg's movable type
and printing press; Da Vinci's gears, looms, and flying
machines; Watt's steam engine; Edison's myriad electrical
inventions, from the light bulb to the phonograph; Marconi's
wireless; Ford's automobile; Fermi's atomic reactor -- this
is the dramatic and engrossing story of over ninety centuries
of invention and discovery.
Today we live in an age in which invention
and mechanical ingenuity are so profuse that they seem almost
commonplace. But commonplace or not, they pose an urgent
problem. The question is, has the machine replaced its inventor?
A History of the Machine is an important
book, dealing with the history and future of one of today's
most crucial problems. This handsome book will be an invaluable
addition to the library of anyone who is interested in the
world today.
This is one of the twenty-four volumes in
The New Illustrated Library of Science and Invention,
which chronicles man's greatest achievements in science
and technology. Like A History of the Machine, each
volume in this series has been elegantly designed by Erik
Nitsche, lavishly illustrated, and carefully researched.
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