The Perfectionists

Starred review from March 19, 2018
Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) smoothly mixes history, science, and biographical sketches to pay homage to the work of precision engineers, whom he credits with the creation of everything from unpickable locks to gravity wave detectors and the Hubble Telescope. He credits the start of modern precision engineering to “iron-mad” John Wilkinson, an eccentric 18th-century English engineer whose method for casting and boring iron cannons led to the manufacture of smooth-running pistons and cylinders that were then used in the steam engines of James Watt. The son of a precision engineer, Winchester clearly delights in the topic, relating his stories with verve, enthusiasm, and wit. Henry Royce and the Rolls-Royce automobiles
he designed contrast with Henry Ford’s inexpensive, “reliably unreliable” bare-bones assembly line cars. The author paints historic characters vividly, including engineer Joseph Whitworth, described as “large and bearded and oyster-eyed”; cabinet-maker Joseph Bramah, who patented the flush toilet; tech aficionado Prince Albert; and rapacious businessman Eli Whitney, who lied about using Frenchman Honoré Blanc’s idea for standardized parts for flintlocks in his winning bid for a U.S. government contract for 10,000 muskets. Winchester’s latest is a rollicking work of pop science that entertains and informs.

Starred review from April 15, 2018

Winchester (Pacific) suggests that precision engineering allowed the Industrial Revolution to occur and has directly led to our current technological state. John Wilkinson became the father of precision when he developed in the 18th century a method of boring into cast iron to create identical cannons. Other people profiled here include British investor Henry Maudslay, particularly his creation of locks and measuring machines; and British engineer Joseph Whitworth, who pioneered the development of standardized screws and rifles. Winchester also discusses automobile production; for example, Henry Royce's craftsmen made all of his cars by hand. There would be small differences in each product, but the overall quality led to the high cost of Rolls-Royce vehicles. Henry Ford, however, aimed to make vehicles more affordable. To accomplish this, he had precision parts made on assembly lines. Winchester ends the book with concerns about the loss of craft and focuses on the Japanese method of carmaking, in which flaws are considered to be as beautiful as precision pieces. VERDICT Fans of Winchester's previous best sellers will discover this latest to be a delightful and engaging study of the role of historical and modern technology.--Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2018
An ingenious argument that the dazzling advances that produced the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, and the revolutions that followed owe their success to a single engineering element: precision.Early on in this entertaining narrative, bestselling journalist and historian Winchester (Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators and Fading Empires, 2015), whose father "was for all of his working life a precision engineer," points out that James Watt (1736-1819) invented a vastly improved steam engine, but John Wilkinson (1728-1808) made it work. Watt's pistons generated enormous energy but moved inside handmade sheet metal cylinders that leaked profusely under the pressure. After years of frustration, he was rescued by Wilkinson, who had invented a machine that bored a precise hole through a solid block of iron. It had already revolutionized cannon manufacture, and it did the same for Watt's steam engine. Human precision made the Rolls-Royce, which earned the reputation "for precision products made beyond consideration of price," expensive, but engineering precision made the Model T cheap. An assembly line must stop if one mass-produced part doesn't fit perfectly into the next, so Henry Ford spared no expense to ensure that it did. Winchester tells the story of a series of increasingly impressive inventions, usually introduced by a journalistic "hook" to engage readers--e.g., an account of an explosion aboard the world's largest commercial airliner in 2010 precedes his history of the jet engine. In the final chapter, the author does not deny that something vital is lost when human craftsmanship bows before technical perfection, but it's clear where his heart lies. He sought some answers in Japan, which displays "an aesthetic sensibility wherein asymmetry and roughness and impermanence are accorded every bit as much weight as are the exact, the immaculate, and the precise."Less a work of scholarship than an enthusiastic popular-science tour of technological marvels, and readers will love the ride.

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Starred review from March 1, 2018
As much as we value our contemporary high-tech conveniences, from cell phones to fuel-injected cars, few have ever considered a vitally important feature that keeps them all running smoothly, precision engineering. With his customary flair for transforming arcane subjects into engaging prose, Winchester (Pacific, 2015) recounts the achievements of several little-known inventors who revolutionized global industry and effectively made all of our modern gadgets possible with their finely crafted machinery. Although Winchester begins by giving due credit to the clockmakers who kept the British railways on-schedule, in his view the first pioneer of precision-tooled instruments was eighteenth-century English industrialist John Iron-Mad Winchester, who constructed the painstakingly accurate boring machines that produced cast-iron cylinders for steam engines. Other innovators profiled include Joseph Bramah (the hydraulic press), Jesse Ramsden (refracting telescopes), and Joseph Whitworth (precision machine tools). While Winchester underscores the importance these men's contributions have ultimately made to today's world of endlessly reproducible goods, he also contemplates whether in all this sameness and precision there isn't still room for less accurate but no less valuable craftsmanship. Another gem from one of the world's justly celebrated historians specializing in unusual and always fascinating subjects and people. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Another reader-pleaser from perennially best-selling Winchester.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)