The Life and Legend of James Watt

The Life and Legend of James Watt PDF Author: David Philip Miller
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822986795
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
The Life and Legend of James Wattoffers a deeper understanding of the work and character of the great eighteenth-century engineer. Stripping away layers of legend built over generations, David Philip Miller finds behind the heroic engineer a conflicted man often diffident about his achievements but also ruthless in protecting his inventions and ideas, and determined in pursuit of money and fame. A skilled and creative engineer, Watt was also a compulsive experimentalist drawn to natural philosophical inquiry, and a chemistry of heat underlay much of his work, including his steam engineering. But Watt pursued the business of natural philosophy in a way characteristic of his roots in the Scottish “improving” tradition that was in tension with Enlightenment sensibilities. As Miller demonstrates, Watt’s accomplishments relied heavily on collaborations, not always acknowledged, with business partners, employees, philosophical friends, and, not least, his wives, children, and wider family. The legend created in his later years and “afterlife” claimed too much of nineteenth-century technology for Watt, but that legend was, and remains, a powerful cultural force.

The Life and Legend of James Watt

The Life and Legend of James Watt PDF Author: David Philip Miller
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822986795
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Life and Legend of James Wattoffers a deeper understanding of the work and character of the great eighteenth-century engineer. Stripping away layers of legend built over generations, David Philip Miller finds behind the heroic engineer a conflicted man often diffident about his achievements but also ruthless in protecting his inventions and ideas, and determined in pursuit of money and fame. A skilled and creative engineer, Watt was also a compulsive experimentalist drawn to natural philosophical inquiry, and a chemistry of heat underlay much of his work, including his steam engineering. But Watt pursued the business of natural philosophy in a way characteristic of his roots in the Scottish “improving” tradition that was in tension with Enlightenment sensibilities. As Miller demonstrates, Watt’s accomplishments relied heavily on collaborations, not always acknowledged, with business partners, employees, philosophical friends, and, not least, his wives, children, and wider family. The legend created in his later years and “afterlife” claimed too much of nineteenth-century technology for Watt, but that legend was, and remains, a powerful cultural force.

The Life and Legend of James Watt

The Life and Legend of James Watt PDF Author: David Philip Miller
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 9780822945581
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Life and Legend of James Wattoffers a deeper understanding of the work and character of the great eighteenth-century engineer. Stripping away layers of legend built over generations, David Philip Miller finds behind the heroic engineer a conflicted man often diffident about his achievements but also ruthless in protecting his inventions and ideas, and determined in pursuit of money and fame. A skilled and creative engineer, Watt was also a compulsive experimentalist drawn to natural philosophical inquiry, and a chemistry of heat underlay much of his work, including his steam engineering. But Watt pursued the business of natural philosophy in a way characteristic of his roots in the Scottish “improving” tradition that was in tension with Enlightenment sensibilities. As Miller demonstrates, Watt’s accomplishments relied heavily on collaborations, not always acknowledged, with business partners, employees, philosophical friends, and, not least, his wives, children, and wider family. The legend created in his later years and “afterlife” claimed too much of nineteenth-century technology for Watt, but that legend was, and remains, a powerful cultural force.

James Watt (1736-1819)

James Watt (1736-1819) PDF Author: Malcolm Dick
Publisher:
ISBN: 1789620821
Category : Engineers
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
James Watt is celebrated as the inventor of the energy efficient pumping and rotative steam engines. Studies of Watt have focused on his inventiveness, influence and reputation. This book explores new aspects of his work and places him in family, social and intellectual contexts during the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution.

Rebel

Rebel PDF Author: Donald Spoto
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1461741661
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
This authoritative biography of film icon James Dean offers a clear-eyed look at the actor who crossed America's cinematic landscape with the brilliance and brevity of a meteor.

Willie Mays

Willie Mays PDF Author: James S. Hirsch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439171653
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 658

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling, authorized, “enormously entertaining and wide-ranging” (The Seattle Times) biography of the late, great Willie Mays. Willie Mays (1931–2024) was arguably the greatest player in baseball history, revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New York, and was the headliner in Major League Baseball’s bold expansion to California. He was a blend of power, speed, and stylistic bravado that enraptured fans for more than two decades. Author James Hirsch reveals the man behind the player. Mays was a transcendent figure who received standing ovations in enemy stadiums and who, during the turbulent civil rights era, urged understanding and reconciliation. More than his records, his legacy is defined by the pure joy that he brought to fans and the loving memories that have been passed to future generations so they might know the magic and beauty of the game. With meticulous research and drawing on interviews with Mays himself as well as with close friends, family, and teammates, Hirsch presents a brilliant portrait of one of America’s most significant cultural icons.

The Power Makers

The Power Makers PDF Author: Maury Klein
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1596918349
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
Maury Klein is one of America's most acclaimed historians of business and society. In The Power Makers, he offers an epic narrative of his greatest subject yet - the "power revolution" that transformed American life in the course of the nineteenth century. The steam engine; the incandescent bulb; the electric motor-inventions such as these replaced backbreaking toil with machine labor and changed every aspect of daily life in the span of a few generations. The cast of characters includes inventors like James Watt, Elihu Thomson, and Nikola Tesla; entrepreneurs like George Westinghouse; savvy businessmen like J.P. Morgan, Samuel Insull, and Charles Coffin of General Electric. Striding among them like a colossus is the figure of Thomas Edison, who was creative genius and business visionary at once. With consummate skill, Klein recreates their discoveries, their stunning triumphs and frequent failures, and their unceasing, bare-knuckled battles in the marketplace. In Klein's hands, their personalities and discoveries leap off the page. The Power Makers is a dazzling saga of inspired invention, dogged persistence, and business competition at its most naked and cutthroat--a biography of America in its most astonishing decades.

The Most Powerful Idea in the World

The Most Powerful Idea in the World PDF Author: William Rosen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226726347
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
"The Most Powerful Idea in the World argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution." -- Back cover.

James Watt, Chemist

James Watt, Chemist PDF Author: David Philip Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317314050
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Miller examines Watt's illustrious engineering career in light of his parallel interest in chemistry, arguing that Watt's conception of steam engineering relied upon chemical understandings.

Governor Reagan

Governor Reagan PDF Author: Lou Cannon
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786739215
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 622

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Book Description
In Governor Reagan, Lou Cannon offers -- through recent interviews and research drawn from his unique access to the cabinet minutes of Reagan's first years as governor of California -- a fresh look at the development of a master politician. At first, Reagan suffered from political amateurism, an inexperienced staff, and ideological blind spots. But he quickly learned to take the measure of the Democrats who controlled the State Legislature and surprised friends and foes alike by agreeing to a huge tax increase, which made it possible for him to govern for eight years without additional tax hikes. He developed an environmental policy that preserved the state 's scenic valleys and wild rivers, and he signed into law what was then the nation's most progressive declaration on abortion rights. His quixotic 1968 presidential campaign revealed his higher ambitions to the world and taught him how much he had to learn about big-league politics. Written by the definitive biographer of Ronald Reagan, this new biography is a classic study of a fascinating individual's evolution from a conservative hero to a national figure whose call for renewal stirred Republicans, working-class Democrats, and independents alike.

The National Covenant in Scotland, 1638-1689

The National Covenant in Scotland, 1638-1689 PDF Author: Chris R. Langley
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783275308
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
What did it mean to be a Covenanter?