Watt's Perfect Engine

Bookwatch, The, April, 2005

Watt's Perfect Engine

Ben Marsden

Columbia University Press

61 West 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023-7015

www.columbiaedu/cu/cup

0231131720 $19.50 1-800-944-8648

James Watt's name has become well known as the inventor of the light bulb; but it was the steam engine which also earned him fame--and which did not come about due to his single-handed genius. The development, function and role of the 'perfect engine' during his times in England is revealed in Ben Marsden's Watt's Perfect Engine: Steam And The Age Of Invention, a lively historical coverage of how the engine evolved and reflected not only the promise, but the problems of the Industrial Revolution. A fine, wide-ranging history.