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The age of machinery : engineering the industrial revolution 1770-1850
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ISBN: 1783272767 9781783272761 9781787442382 1787442381 Year: 2018 Publisher: Woodbridge : The Boydell Press,

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An engagingly written account of textile engineering in its key northern centres, rich with historical narrative and analysis.


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The coming famine : the global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it
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ISBN: 1282660802 9786612660801 0520947169 9781282660809 9780520947160 Year: 2010 Publisher: Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press,

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In The Coming Famine, Julian Cribb lays out a vivid picture of impending planetary crisis--a global food shortage that threatens to hit by mid-century--that would dwarf any in our previous experience. Cribb's comprehensive assessment describes a dangerous confluence of shortages--of water, land, energy, technology, and knowledge--combined with the increased demand created by population and economic growth. Writing in brisk, accessible prose, Cribb explains how the food system interacts with the environment and with armed conflict, poverty, and other societal factors. He shows how high food prices and regional shortages are already sending shockwaves into the international community. But, far from outlining a doomsday scenario, The Coming Famine offers a strong and positive call to action, exploring the greatest issue of our age and providing practical suggestions for addressing each of the major challenges it raises.

Draw the lightning down : Benjamin Franklin and electrical technology in the Age of Enlightenment
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ISBN: 1597345849 0520939859 9786612358531 1282358537 9780520939851 1417525495 9781417525492 9780520238022 0520238028 9781597345842 661235853X 0520238028 9781282358539 Year: 2003 Publisher: Berkeley : University of California Press,

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Most of us know-at least we've heard-that Benjamin Franklin conducted some kind of electrical experiment with a kite. What few of us realize-and what this book makes powerfully clear-is that Franklin played a major role in laying the foundations of modern electrical science and technology. This fast-paced book, rich with historical details and anecdotes, brings to life Franklin, the large international network of scientists and inventors in which he played a key role, and their amazing inventions. We learn what these early electrical devices-from lights and motors to musical and medical instruments-looked like, how they worked, and what their utilitarian and symbolic meanings were for those who invented and used them. Against the fascinating panorama of life in the eighteenth century, Michael Brian Schiffer tells the story of the very beginnings of our modern electrical world. The earliest electrical technologies were conceived in the laboratory apparatus of physicists; because of their surprising and diverse effects, however, these technologies rapidly made their way into many other communities and activities. Schiffer conducts us from community to community, showing how these technologies worked as they were put to use in public lectures, revolutionary experiments in chemistry and biology, and medical therapy. This story brings to light the arcane and long-forgotten inventions that made way for many modern technologies-including lightning rods (Franklin's invention), cardiac stimulation, xerography, and the internal combustion engine-and richly conveys the complex relationships among science, technology, and culture.

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