The Industrial Revolution inspires more academic theories than absorbing
narratives. Rosen, however, crafts one from subplots that connect with primitive
industrialism's premier symbol: the steam engine. Ardent about historical
technology, Rosen modulates his mechanical zeal with contexts underscoring that
Thomas Newcomen and James Watt did not operate in a social vacuum. Fixing on
patents as one prerequisite to their inventions, Rosen describes intellectual
property's English legal and philosophical origins as he segues to Newcomen's
and Watt's backgrounds. A degree of social mobility in eighteenth-century Britain
enabled their rise, but it was the specific economic situations in mining and
textiles to which they responded that ensured it. These business matters provide
Rosen with storytelling opportunities that feature capital investors, scientists
studying heat, and over time, innovators who improved the steam engine from
a stationary to a mobile power source: Rocket, the famous railroad engine built
in 1829. Readers who like enthused authors will like Rosen, and fans of his Roman
history Justinian's Flea (2007) augment their number.

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