Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World 1776-1914 Book

Only the sheer scope of the industrial revolution prevents this book from being a 5-star read in the end. The author tries to cover too many inventors, too many failed inventions, and too many false starts, in the effort to explode the myths (Edison wasn't much of an inventor, James Watt didn't invent the steam engine after seeing a tea kettle boil, and so on) and celebrate the victories of Victorian invention. But what is here is marvelous, if chaotic, and you come away with an appreciation of the incredible leap forward that Europe and the US made from about 1750 to 1850, especially. in creating both the wonders and the mess of modern life. One real surprise for me: the first microdots used by spies were -- wait for it -- during the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870. Miniature cameras? In Dickens' lifetime? Who knew?