The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

by Simon Winchester

Overview

The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.

The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras—and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider.

Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia.

As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062652560
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/07/2019
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	19,609
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.

Hometown:

New York; Massachusetts; Scotland

Date of Birth:

September 28, 1944

Place of Birth:

London, England

Education:

M.A., St. Catherine¿s College, Oxford, 1966

Website:

http://www.simonwinchester.com

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 Stars, Seconds, Cylinders, and Steam 23

Chapter 2 Extremely Flat and Incredibly Close 53

Chapter 3 A Gun in Every Home, a Clock in Every Cabin 81

Chapter 4 On the Verge of a More Perfect World 107

Chapter 5 The Irresistible Lure of the Highway 129

Chapter 6 Precision and Peril, Six Miles High 173

Chapter 7 Through a Glass, Distinctly 215

Chapter 8 Where Am I, and What is the Time? 255

Chapter 9 Squeezing Beyond Boundaries 275

Chapter 10 On the Necessity for Equipoise 307

Afterword: The Measure of All Things 331

Acknowledgments 357

A Glossary of Possibly Unfamiliar Terms 361

Bibliography 369

Index 375

Editorial Reviews

The Perfectionists succeeds resoundingly in making us think more deeply about the everyday objects we take for granted. It challenges us to reflect on our progress as humans and what has made it possible. It is interesting, informative, exciting and emotional, and for anyone with even some curiosity about what makes the machines of our world work as well as they do, it's a real treat.

The New York Times Book Review - Roma Agrawal

★ 03/19/2018
Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) smoothly mixes history, science, and biographical sketches to pay homage to the work of precision engineers, whom he credits with the creation of everything from unpickable locks to gravity wave detectors and the Hubble Telescope. He credits the start of modern precision engineering to “iron-mad” John Wilkinson, an eccentric 18th-century English engineer whose method for casting and boring iron cannons led to the manufacture of smooth-running pistons and cylinders that were then used in the steam engines of James Watt. The son of a precision engineer, Winchester clearly delights in the topic, relating his stories with verve, enthusiasm, and wit. Henry Royce and the Rolls-Royce automobiles he designed contrast with Henry Ford’s inexpensive, “reliably unreliable” bare-bones assembly line cars. The author paints historic characters vividly, including engineer Joseph Whitworth, described as “large and bearded and oyster-eyed”; cabinet-maker Joseph Bramah, who patented the flush toilet; tech aficionado Prince Albert; and rapacious businessman Eli Whitney, who lied about using Frenchman Honoré Blanc’s idea for standardized parts for flintlocks in his winning bid for a U.S. government contract for 10,000 muskets. Winchester’s latest is a rollicking work of pop science that entertains and informs. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging.

Tom Brokaw

Vivid, valuable. . . . An extraordinary, propulsive tale.

Wall Street Journal

Another gem from one of the world’s justly celebrated historians specializing in unusual and always fascinating subjects and people.

Booklist (starred review)

Praise for The Men Who United the States: “Entertaining. . . . A pleasure.

New York Times Book Review

Winchester is a longtime journalist turned author, a meticulous researcher and catholic thinker.

James Gleick

A rousing tribute to the alliances, agencies, and inventions—from Lewis and Clark to the Internet—that underpin our more perfect union. A stunning, highly original feast of a book.

Stacy Schiff

[M]esmerizing and fascinating. . . . Mr. Winchester is a master storyteller, and all the individuals, places, and events that he passionately writes about come to life in exquisite detail.

New York Journal of Books

Vivid, valuable. . . . An extraordinary, propulsive tale.

Wall Street Journal

★ 04/15/2018
Winchester (Pacific) suggests that precision engineering allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur and has directly led to our current technological state. John Wilkinson became the father of precision when he developed in the 18th century a method of boring into cast iron to create identical cannons. Other people profiled here include British investor Henry Maudslay, particularly his creation of locks and measuring machines; and British engineer Joseph Whitworth, who pioneered the development of standardized screws and rifles. Winchester also discusses automobile production; for example, Henry Royce's craftsmen made all of his cars by hand. There would be small differences in each product, but the overall quality led to the high cost of Rolls-Royce vehicles. Henry Ford, however, aimed to make vehicles more affordable. To accomplish this, he had precision parts made on assembly lines. Winchester ends the book with concerns about the loss of craft and focuses on the Japanese method of carmaking, in which flaws are considered to be as beautiful as precision pieces. VERDICT Fans of Winchester's previous best sellers will discover this latest to be a delightful and engaging study of the role of historical and modern technology.—Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI

Library Journal

★ 2018-02-20
An ingenious argument that the dazzling advances that produced the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the revolutions that followed owe their success to a single engineering element: precision.Early on in this entertaining narrative, bestselling journalist and historian Winchester (Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators and Fading Empires, 2015), whose father "was for all of his working life a precision engineer," points out that James Watt (1736-1819) invented a vastly improved steam engine, but John Wilkinson (1728-1808) made it work. Watt's pistons generated enormous energy but moved inside handmade sheet metal cylinders that leaked profusely under the pressure. After years of frustration, he was rescued by Wilkinson, who had invented a machine that bored a precise hole through a solid block of iron. It had already revolutionized cannon manufacture, and it did the same for Watt's steam engine. Human precision made the Rolls-Royce, which earned the reputation "for precision products made beyond consideration of price," expensive, but engineering precision made the Model T cheap. An assembly line must stop if one mass-produced part doesn't fit perfectly into the next, so Henry Ford spared no expense to ensure that it did. Winchester tells the story of a series of increasingly impressive inventions, usually introduced by a journalistic "hook" to engage readers—e.g., an account of an explosion aboard the world's largest commercial airliner in 2010 precedes his history of the jet engine. In the final chapter, the author does not deny that something vital is lost when human craftsmanship bows before technical perfection, but it's clear where his heart lies. He sought some answers in Japan, which displays "an aesthetic sensibility wherein asymmetry and roughness and impermanence are accorded every bit as much weight as are the exact, the immaculate, and the precise."Less a work of scholarship than an enthusiastic popular-science tour of technological marvels, and readers will love the ride.

Kirkus Reviews

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