Leslie Tomory has written one of the finest industry studies of the Industrial Revolution to appear in many decades. The gas light industry is conceptually as important to the understanding of economic growth in early-nineteenth-century Europe as cotton and steam, and his book is the definitive study of it. This intelligent and meticulously-researched work should be required reading for students of the Industrial Revolution and anyone interested in innovation in an earlier age.
Joel Mokyr, Professor of Economics, Northwestern University
In this fascinating history of the origins of the coal gas industry, Leslie Tomory offers important insights into the connections between science and technology in the Industrial Revolution and the role played by entrepreneurs in early industrialization. In the process he also adds greatly to our understanding of the emergence of large-scale technological systems in the nineteenth century.
Paul Israel, Director and General Editor, Thomas A. Edison Papers Project, Rutgers University
Leslie Tomory has produced a comprehensive history of the origins and early development of gas lighting that will appeal especially to historians of chemistry and chemical technology, as well as social and economic historians. In a splendidly rich narrative that links chemistry with technology and urban history, Tomory argues convincingly that gas lighting was part of the first wave of science-based technologies to be exploited in the service and improvement of mankind.
William H. Brock, Emeritus Professor of History of Science, University of Leicester, UK
Leslie Tomory's account is original, insightful, and admirably researched, the first to show convincingly and in detail how the technology of a major industry had its beginnings in an instrument invented in the chemistry laboratory. He makes a compelling argument for considering gaslight as the first major science-based network technology of the industrial era. This is an important book.
Trevor Levere, University of Toronto
[Tomory's] well-written and fully illustrated work makes a strong case for the gas network as the pioneer of the century's technological networks, which included water, railways, and electricity.
Choice
This well written and cleanly organized study is especially good on internal developments at Boulton & Watt and GLCC, and draws extensively on the archives of both companies. It offers an important comment on early relationships between science and industry, and demonstrates how significant an analysis of entrepreneurship may be for our understanding of industrial revolutions.
Aestimatio
