Abandoning a military career, Richard Beamish (1798 1873) decided to become a civil engineer. His suitability as a biographer of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769 1849) stems from the period he spent working closely with the Brunels on the Thames Tunnel. Published in 1862, this memoir recounts the elder Brunel's eventful life and work, including his youth in France, his flight to America in the aftermath of the French Revolution, his lesser-known ventures in the early nineteenth century, and the tunnelling project which would consume much of the second half of his life. An informed portrait of a...