Inventing the Modern World : A History of Technology since 1750

Presents more than 450 photographs and illustrations, to explore the rise of technological innovation, discussing such advances as the electric light, the atomic bomb, the steam train, the space shuttle, and the computer.

For all its dirt, smog, and alienation, the industrial revolution brought with it a strangely graceful beauty. The collections of London's Science Museum include 250 years' worth of records of the changes wrought by Watt and his ilk, and its Collections Research head Robert Bud has culled the most interesting and lovely to present in Inventing the Modern World: Technology Since 1750. This large, well-designed book is organized in roughly chronological sections with titles like "Inventing Accuracy" and "The Age of the Consumer."

The pages contain contemporary photographs of industrial conditions, shots of models and preserved technology, diagrams, and paintings showing the influence of manufacturing on fine art. Look at Charles Babbage's analytical engine, examine the first telephone directory and actuarial tables, and see the Concorde and the pill in their larger contexts. The book's second strength, after the richness of its images, is its transcendence of the notion that technology is use-neutral; napalm is mentioned alongside a war-resistance poster. This openness, far from sparking flames of neo-Luddism, rescues science from its see-no-evil defenders, who have sacrificed their credibility on the altar of denial. Who would have thought that a coffee-table book might raise consciousness? Inventing the Modern World can do just that, bringing pro- and anti-tech alike to a joint awareness of the dangerous poetics of machine organization. --Rob Lightner