Product Description

Britain is the only country in the world to have cancelled its space programme just as it put its first rocket into orbit. Starting with this forgotten episode, this text tells the bitter-sweet story of how one country lost its industrial tradition and got something back. Sad, inspiring, funny and ultimately triumphant, it follows the technologists whose work kept Concorde flying, created the computer game, conquered the mobile-phone business, saved the human genome for the human race and who are now sending the Beagle 2 probe to burrow the cinnamon sands of Mars.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #303133 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 250 pages

Review
Described in the blurb as 'a vivid love-letter to quiet men in pullovers', this is a fascinating account of those ingenious engineers who invented the technologies of the future, often on a shoestring budget. It opens with the arrival of the first V2 noted by the British Interplanetary Society in a London pub, and we soon read of a surreal meeting between Arthur C Clark, the famous science-fiction writer, and C S Lewis. We learn how Britain cancelled its space program and how Ernest Benn was a good friend to Concorde. The story covers other technologies such as computer games, mobile telephones and mind-boggling efforts with the human genome. It makes for compulsive reading and is the sort of book only British endeavours could produce. It deserves to sell and sell.

Who said the Industrial Revolution ended in the 19th century? British engineers and technicians are still blazing trails in every field from the human genome to space travel, and this book doffs its hat to all the individuals involved. Along the way it also takes an affectionate look at Concorde and talks of what might have been. Spufford's mission has been to tell the story of the most remarkable innovations of the last century and to show them in the context of British endeavour. This is no dry-as-dust study or descent into geekery, however - Spufford brings an excitement to his writing and enthuses his readers with wonder for the achievements that are still happening each day. His use of language is especially potent, being both evocative and colourful without getting into the range of hyperbole. If you are interested in any form of technology (and its proponents) from computer games to Martian expeditions, this is the book for you. (Kirkus UK)

Focus, October 2003
Francis Spufford is the Tom Wolfe of technology journalism ... Unreservedly marvellous.

Daily Mail, 31 October 2003
The most fascinating book I've read all year.

Customer Reviews

to every action there is an equal and oposite reaction
My grandfather spent the war years designing switchgear for G.E.C in Manchester. He carried a five-inch slide rule in the breast pocket of his tweed jacket and a well-stocked tobacco tin at the hip. He was good at partial differential equations but couldn't change a light bulb. He would have been very irritated by someone who mixes up Newton's first and third laws as Mr. Spufford does.
For someone who clearly admires the pared down aesthetic of British engineering at it's best Spufford's prose style is surprisingly flowery. Some readers may well be left feeling they have bought a pink Cadillac when what they really wanted was a Lotus Seven. Having said that I still enjoyed the book, read it in a couple of days and found the stories interesting, informative, amusing and sometimes touching. The hard core techie will be disappointed the book does not contain more science but the general reader (and I suspect more particularly the British general reader) will be be thoroughly entertained.

As good as Bryson
A series of essays on British technological achievements may sound rather dry but this throughly-researched and very well-written boook makes an absorbing and entertaining read. Spufford has the same knack as Bill Bryson (in 'A short history of nearly everything') of thoroughly grasping the important points of the six areas that he treats, and distilling them into witty and informative tales for the non-specialist. The story of the human genome project, and how British intervention narrowly prevented it from falling completely into the hands of a private company, makes as good a thriller as you will read anywhere; the chapter about Beagle 2 has moments of laugh-out-loud comedy. I got it as a 'stocking filler' this Christmas and couldn't put it down.

A very good example of how not to write a book.
The subject matter of backroom boys is excellent and the book is both informative and in some places funny, I could have realy enjoyed it except for the constant wafle, blah blah and repeats. In the end - no before the end (chapter five) I had to give in, I just could'nt take more...