Invention, engineering and energy

The building of the Panama Canal, from France's failed attempt to US completion.

Electrification in the US, Britain and Germany, 1880 to 1930, as a technical system.

Why complex, tightly coupled systems such as Three Mile Island will fail regardless.

How the bomb was built, from the discovery of atomic energy to Hiroshima.

How inventions of 1867 to 1914, from electricity to cars, made the modern world.

How the diesel engine and the gas turbine made modern global trade possible.

How American manufacturing rose to lead the world, and why its share then fell.

How much steel, cement and plastic the world uses, and whether growth needs less.

Why structures hold up or fail: tension, compression, shear and fracture explained.

A catalogue reviewing over 1,500 tools and what each one is good for.

How 3D printing and other tools let anyone start a manufacturing business.

How Edison's electric light changed American life and marked a new age.

The 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and the secrecy and myth that hid what happened.

One USB charger followed from a factory in Vietnam by ship and truck to a door.

Tesla from its founding disputes through the Model 3 production crisis to 2020.

How the stirrup and the plough reorganised medieval society and economy

How electricity spread through everyday American life and commerce.

Nucor building a mini-mill at the bottom of the steel cycle.

Chester Carlson and xerography, the invention that funded PARC.

How utility business models must change once regulated growth ends.

Why US railroads declined under regulation and recovered after the Staggers Act.

The engineering and capital replacement cycle of urban water systems.

Water technology as an export industry built from a domestic constraint.

How minor metals are mined, traded and hoarded.

The global race to build a better lithium-ion battery for electric cars.

Why the regulated grid's economics are breaking.

Tesla and the global shift away from the combustion engine.

Why complex systems fail, from Volkswagen to Everest, and how to design against it.

The demand side: what full electrification of homes and vehicles requires.

The forces that have shaped technology since prehistory and now shape modern people.

The inventor's own account of his life and work, the main source for his biographers.

Tight narrative of the Model T years; the best short account.

The knowledge survivors would need to rebuild technological society after a collapse.

The century-long race among automakers to build the car of the future.

Institutional history of interconnection and who controls it.

The coming of the machine age in Britain, 1660 to 1886, through eyewitness writings.