TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 399 In an essay concerning the drawings of machines, instruments, and tools, Gustina Scaglia identifies the most significant sources as the drawings of Mariano Taccola, Francesco di Giorgio, and an anony mous artist called “Anonimo Ingegnere Senese.” It is clear that Sienese traditions of machine drawing greatly influenced the Sangallo workshop. Scaglia provides detailed accounts of particular draw ings—some are machines in specific locations (e.g., a mill at Cesena), some are discussed as types of machines (e.g., hoists and cranes). She includes an appendix that lists the Uffizi sheet, the artist, the machine type, and the original source. This volume is a major work of scholarship. Among its virtues, it provides one of the best introductions that I know of to 16th-century central Italian military architecture. The essays, drawings, and com mentaries, taken together, contain a wealth of detailed information that will prove invaluable to further scholarship—in architectural his tory, urban history, military history, and the history of technology. Scholars of the early modern period are much indebted to these collaborators, including Frommel, the general editor, and Adams, the editor of this particular volume and clearly its guiding spirit. Pamela O. Long Dr. Long’s publications include a study of early modern architectural treatises. Her work in progress involves an investigation of 15th- and 16th-century military, architec tural, and engineering books. The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 1: Before 1700: Towards the Age ofCoal. By John Hatcher. New York: Clarendon Press (Oxford University Press), 1993. Pp. xviii + 624; illustrations, maps, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $95.00. While this volume is the first in the chronological coverage of the history of the British coal industry, it is the last in the series to appear. Its completion has to be a matter for great congratulation to British Coal, originally inspired to take up the task under Lord Ezra; to Peter Mathias as general editor; and to the volume authors, and to none more than John Hatcher. The period over which the series has been written is remarkable. In 1975 when work began, the power of the mineworkers’ union had just destroyed a government: by 1993 the industry was in virtually terminal decline. Hatcher has the advantages of having worked on the medieval period and on population, which lend perspective to his survey. In one respect his task was more difficult than that of the other authors. He had to follow the famous 1932 work of John Nef, The Rise of the British Coal Industry, whose achievement was acknowledged by the Society for the History of Technology with its most prestigious award. On the one hand, Hatcher has had to break through to new sources. Nef in the late 1920s and early 1930s had to depend heavily on 400 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE nationally held public records. Hatcher and his associates have made massive use of private archives and have been able to find them in a large number of county and city record offices not available to Nef. It has, for instance, been possible for Hatcher to use numerous colliery accounts, and changed evidence has meant changed findings. On the other hand, Nef has been much challenged, for instance on his claims about the volume of coal production in the late 16th century and through the 17th, and its rate of growth; on the adaptation of coal to industrial purposes; on the suggestion of an early indus trial revolution, sometimes incautiously made, particularly in articles rather than in the great book; on the coal industry as a focus of heavy capitalization; and on the threat of fuel scarcity and high prices if Britain had not been able to shift from wood fuels to coal fuels. Generally speaking, Hatcher does back the case of a scarcity of wood and its answering by an increased search for and production of coal. By the late 17th century the production of wood could not have equaled more than the energy equivalent of 2 million tons of coal, while by 1700 annual coal production was certainly above 2.25 million tons, so that it was clearly the most used fuel, and the...
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Apr 1, 2003
David A Vila Domini 
Open Access
