This historical analysis of the events that led to the steam engine tells a fascinating story about people and their inventions. A case study as basis for a multidisciplinary PhD dissertation about innovation, it describes the work of many engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs, from Thomas Savery's 1698 water pump, known as "The Miner's Friend," to Richard Trevithick's "Puffing Devil" and "Catch Me Who Can" high-pressure steam locomotives, which came a century later.

Author and lifelong student of innovation B. J. G. van der Kooij places the inventions in the context of their time and...

B.J.G. van der Kooij continues his exploration of the history of technological innovation, taking readers on an amazing, in-depth journey and examination of the social climate of the times, the lives of innovators, emergent technologies, and their larger impacts.

In the early nineteenth century, Jacobi's boat experiment in St. Petersburg and Page's electric locomotive on the Washington and Baltimore Railroad heralded the use of DC electric motors.

In the 1850s, Gramme, Edison, and Brush developed early direct current generators, followed by the creation of self-exciting dynamos by...

We forget that for most of history, there was little to be done but sleep once the sun disappeared. Today, our lives run on electrical power, and people are not constrained any more by nature's schedule. What was once revolutionary has become an ordinary necessity.

But humans did not harness electricity overnight. Many of the nineteenth century's brightest minds carved a winding path from idea to reality out of the social and economic realities of the day: wars, revolutions, scientific research, and cultural awakenings. Thomas Edison gets deserved credit for inventing the incandescent...

This fascinating book about the invention of the telegraph is part of an expansive series by author B. J. G. van der Kooij, a specialist in innovation paradigms. Each book offers an in-depth exploration of a general-purpose technology, from the steam engine to the Internet, that lies at the foundation of today's global society.

The range of inventions that led to the electric telegraph begins with the initial research of two Germans in the 1830s: Gauss and Weber. Soon experimental telegraphs developed on both sides of the Atlantic (i.e., Morse in the US and Cooke & Wheatstone in...

Innovation is a buzzword prevalent in business and media-but the origin of breakthrough technology is not a recent phenomenon. As far back as the American Revolution, seminal innovations such as the invention of electricity were the catalyst to sweeping, large-scale changes. One of them being "electric speech."

"The Invention of the Communication Engine 'Telephone' "is the fifth volume in the Invention Series. With an authoritative background in the sciences, author B. J. G. van der Kooij has plumbed the depths of the history of technology to create an insightful retelling of how...

The Industrial Revolution is one of the most important periods of change in world history. It ushered in the modern age of innovation. In Context for Innovation, author B. J. G. van der Kooij continues his Invention Series. The first books in the series detail the invention of the steam engine, electric motor and dynamo, telegraph, telephone, electric light, and wireless communication. Now Van der Kooij steps back and looks at the bigger picture.

He details the social, economic, and political conditions that led to this period of rapid industrialization. He tackles such...