From flooded coal mines to the machine that unchained energy itself: how steam freed industry from muscle, wind, and water — and set the world in motion.
For ten thousand years, every machine on earth ran on the same three fuels: muscle, wind, and water. Then an ironmonger from Devon bottled thunder — and humanity gained a source of power that owed nothing to weather, geography, or living things. The world has been accelerating ever since.
