Heroes of invention : technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750-1914
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Bibliographic Information
Heroes of invention : technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750-1914
（Cambridge studies in economic history）
Cambridge University Press, 2007
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Note
Bibliography: p. 397-439
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This innovative study adopts a distinct perspective on both the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century British culture. It investigates why inventors rose to heroic stature and popular acclaim in Victorian Britain, attested by numerous monuments, biographies and honours, and contends there was no decline in the industrial nation's self-esteem before 1914. In a period notorious for hero-worship, the veneration of inventors might seem unremarkable, were it not for their previous disparagement and the relative neglect suffered by their twentieth-century successors. Christine MacLeod argues that inventors became figureheads of various nineteenth-century factions, from economic and political liberals to impoverished scientists and radical artisans, who deployed their heroic reputation, not least to challenge the aristocracy's hold on power and the militaristic national identity that bolstered it. Although this was a challenge that ultimately failed, its legacy of ideas about invention, inventors, and the history of the industrial revolution remains highly influential.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- List of illustrations
- 1. Introduction: inventors and other heroes
- 2. The new Prometheus
- 3. The inventor's progress
- 4. The apotheosis of James Watt
- 5. Watt, inventor of the Industrial Revolution
- 6. 'What's Watt?' The radical critique
- 7. The technological pantheon
- 8. Heroes of the Pax Britannica
- 9. Debating the patent system
- 10. The workers' heroes
- 11. Maintaining the industrial spirit
- 12. Science and the disappearing inventor
- Epilogue. The Victorian legacy
- Bibliography
- Index.
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