The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible - and Other Journeys
by James Burke

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• ISBN13: 9780316116107
• Condition: New
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Book Reviews of The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible - and Other Journeys

Book Review: A fascinating read.
Summary: 5 Stars

For example, the following sequence of events comes from the first chapter of the book:

Rowland Hill is best known for introducing the idea of postage stamps. The first printer that the British government hired was an American named Jacob Perkins, who later turned his new printing techniques to the problem of mass producing printed cotton cloth. For this he used a special gum imported from West Africa called Senegal gum. This was made possible by the French who had colonized that part of the world. That in turn was made possible by the 17th century statesman called Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who modernized much of France and in particular its navy. He was responsible for the building of the Canal du Midi that cut a swathe in France from the Atlantic to the Med. One of the engineers who worked on this massive undertaking was Sebastien Vauban, a brilliant inventor who also came up with a new method of siege warfare that was used by French and American troops to defeat the British at Yorktown. The American victory led to a huge number of loyalists fleeing to Nova Scotia. One of them was Abraham Kunders, who saw an opportunity in transporting the other group of refugees sweeping into that part of the world, namely Scots who had been kicked off their lands. After some time this transatlantic traffic was beginning to wane. Meanwhile, Hill's Penny Post had just begun, and Kunders was quick to realize that this would mean a huge amount of mail requiring transportation across the Atlantic, and made sure his company was there to ship a good deal of it. This made him rich, and started a successful family business which by the twentieth century and a clerical error was the Cunard shipping company, that built such well known liners as the Lustiania and the Queen Elizabeth II.

And that's just part of the first chapter, remember.

Summary of The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible - and Other Journeys

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