Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

In Seven Wonders of the Industrial World Deborah Cadbury uncovers the truth behind the epic monuments of the Industrial Revolution, from Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s extraordinary SS GREAT EASTERN, the ‘Crystal Palace of the Seas’, to the Panama Canal that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans more than half a century later.

These are stories driven by burning ambition, extravagant dreams, passion and the rivalry of great minds. Here is Frank Crowe, the chief engineer behind the Hoover Dam, who battles to create the largest dam in the world by diverting the dangerous and unpredictable Colorado River; and John and Washington Roebling – father and son – whose lives are wrecked in grim succession as they build the Brooklyn Bridge, the longest suspension bridge ever attempted, across the turbulent East River. Here too are countless unsung heroes and forgotten deaths – the craftsmen and workers, some as young as ten years of age, without whose perseverance and bravery nothing would have been achieved. Not to mention the financiers and shareholders hanging on for the ride as fortunes and reputations are lost and won.

With characteristic scholarship and insight, Deborah Cadbury shows us how our modern world was really forged – in rivets, grease and steam; in blood, sweat and human imagination.

Media

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World BBC TV Series (on the Talks and TV page)

See link on the Articles page.

Reviews

While ‘practical visionaries’ such as Brunel, Stevenson, and Roebing may have been ‘taking risks, taking society with them as they cut a path to the future,’ Cadbury never forgets those risking their lives just to survive. What makes this book a compelling read is the heroism and desperation of ordinary men.  Manjit Kumar 11.11.03 Guardian

Informative and smoothly written… Cadbury manages the not inconsiderable feat of writing lucidly about complex scientific and technological matters. The story of individual passion and vision that may strike readers as most thrilling (no other word will do) is the least known of those that Cadbury tells. If you have never heard of the Bell Rock lighthouse, welcome to the club…The same sense of transcendent individual accomplishment can be found in the other stories that Cadbury tells, but in the case of the Transcontinental Railroad and the Hoover Dam, this is compromised by great loss of life and pervasive venality….If there is a moral to the tale, perhaps it is not so much that human kind is capable of bringing great visions to beneficial reality, as that bad people are capable of doing good things, even if they are incapable of recognising them as such.  Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, 12.2.04

Fascinating…What all the wonders have in common is this: they were all born of big ideas. The 19th century, Cadbury emphasises, was the dividing line between a world that had not changed much in centuries and one in which rapid change, especially in technology, would become a way of life.  Booklist, 15.12.03

Cadbury shows an historical breadth of vision in recounting the pillars of the industrial world that gave Britain and America such powers in the 19th century…Her narrative triumph is in spanning the oceans to feature the financiers and labourers who created such monumental projects as the Brooklyn suspension bridge and the Bell Rock Lighthouse. Colin Gardner, The Oxford Times 13.2.04

Cadbury’s choice is an imaginative one and leaves the reader in awe of the tenacity and courage with which visionaries of the industrial era struggled to give their dreams a reality…. Nick Rennison, Waterstones Books Quarterly

The industrial age saw some of the most daring feats of engineering come to life. Deborah Cadbury’s latest book explores the history of its epic monuments and reveals the men behind them. Living History, Nov 03

An engaging and informative read. Cadbury has the knack of providing interesting asides with out gumming up the works. From the building of the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the damming of the powerful Colorado River during the Great Depression, Cadbury recounts the trials, tribulations and ultimately the triumphs of the visionaries.  Julie Mayeda, San Francisco Chronicle, Feb 04