James Watt, Chemist:
Understanding the Origins of the Steam Age
David Philip Miller
Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
978 1 85196 974 6: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 685 1
In the Victorian era, James Watt became an iconic engineer, but in his own time he was also an influential chemist. Miller examines Watt’s illustrious engineering career in light of his parallel interest in chemistry, arguing that Watt’s conception of steam engineering relied upon chemical understandings.
Part I of the book – Representations – examines the way James Watt has been portrayed over time, emphasizing sculptural, pictorial and textual representations from the nineteenth century. As an important contributor to the development of arguably the most important technology of industrialization, Watt became a symbol that many groups of thinkers were anxious to claim. Part II – Realities – focuses on reconstructing the unsung ‘chemical Watt’ instead of the lionized engineer.
Sample pages
Readership
History of Science, Nineteenth Century
Contents
Prologue: The ‘Great Steamer’ – A Life Outlined
Part I: Representations
1 Of Statues, Kettles and Indicators – ‘The Mechanical Watt’
2 The Demise of the ‘Chemical Watt’ in the Nineteenth Century
3 The ‘Mechanical Watt’: The Making of a ‘Philosophical Engineer’
Part II: Realities
4 Watt’s Chemistry of Heat
5 The Steam Engine as Chemistry
6 The Indicator Understood, or Why Watt was not a Proto-thermodynamicist
Conclusion
Reviews
'Absorbing and informative, this careful exploration of the influence of James Watt's chemical understanding of heat illuminates his work on the steam engine, the composition of water, and other areas of his interests ... This work will be especially valuable to readers interested in the science of the period. Highly Recommended.'
– CHOICE
'Miller has an enjoyable writing style ... The balance of the book is good and the 16-page bibliography is very wide ranging.'
– Jane Insley, Notes & Records of the Royal Society
'Miller adds significantly to our understanding of phlogistic chemistry in late eighteenth-century Britain and, via his account of Watt’s role in the ‘water controversy’, the Chemical Revolution itself ... It is a measure of [his] considerable acumen and talents as a historian that he achieves his novel and illuminating insights through a carefully crafted, exhaustively documented and tightly argued analysis of a period in the history of science which, though still poorly understood, transformed our comprehension and utilization of that most ubiquitous and precious substance, water.'
– John G McEvoy, Annals of Science
'Miller concludes his fascinating study of reputation with an analysis of Watt's indicator in its late-eighteenth-century and ninteenth-century manifestations.'
– David Knight, Victorian Studies
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