TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 531 others working in the field, and Peters draws on this interaction to gain an engrossing insight into a crucial period in the evolution of the wire suspension bridge. The largest section of the book deals with the genesis of the wire cable bridge, beginning with the Seguin brothers in France. One theme explored is the fascination of the properties of the catenary curve for mathematicians and engineers and its role in engineering research. A proposal to build the Saint Antoine Bridge in Geneva in the 1820s brought Marc Seguin and Dufour (then state engineer) into discussions. The bridge was completed to Dufour’s design and opened in August 1823. This was the world’s first permanent wire cable suspension bridge, and the design techniques, wire tests, and test loading of the completed structure are discussed. Dufour’s sketches, drawings, manuscript reports, and subsequent archival photographs illustrate this section. The remaining two chapters deal with French developments up to 1850, and an undeveloped design where the cable was beneath the bridge deck. Peters’s exploration of engineering design clearly shows decision making to be multidisciplinary, involving social, military, economic, and political issues. Moreover, Dufour’s design style is the product of his personality and of the culture in which he worked. The author believes that “some familiarity with engineering history is a pre requisite of modern education, for engineering is one of the basic constituents of modern civilization and culture” (p. 9). If only this book could be widely read by intelligent nontechnologists, a great advance in the general understanding of the nature of engineering and of its contribution to society would be made. Denis Smith Dr. Smith, a lecturer and writer on the history of engineering, is the author of “The Use of Models in Nineteenth Century British Suspension Bridge Design,” History of Technology, vol. 2 (1977). Transport in Victorian Britain. Edited by Michael J. Freeman and Derek H. Aldcroft. Manchester and New York: Manchester Uni versity Press and St. Martin’s Press (distributor), 1988. Pp. viii + 310; illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $55.00. Scholars interested in the relationships among technology, econom ics, and corporate evolution will be rewarded by reading Transport in Victorian Britain. Through the synthesis of a vast array of recent research, augmented by research of their own, the five authors have expanded and modified popular knowledge of the development and effects of steam-powered transportation in Victorian-Edwardian Brit ain (1830—1914). The book consists of six independent but coordi nated papers treating five facets of steam-powered locomotion— 532 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE railways, urban transportation, ports, and coastal and international shipping—with a lengthy introduction by the senior editor, Michael J. Freeman, who sets the theme and summarizes the main points made by the other scholars. The forty years between 1830 and 1870 saw the construction of the core of the United Kingdom’s rail network. By 1871, the 51 miles of track that existed in 1829 had been expanded to 15,736 miles, representing about two-thirds of the ultimate network and about the same mileage that British Rail was operating in 1965. Nevertheless, as a means of transportation, railways had a slow start. The authors challenge the conventional understanding that Britain’s industrializa tion was a product of the railway age. As a matter of fact, a number of major producing sections of the British economy had undergone extensive technological and organizational transformation long be fore railway transport had become widespread and before steam power became the primary means of propulsion at sea. Nor were there any serious transportation bottlenecks before the advent of railways. Roads, canals, and wagonways were serving the needs of the industrializing economy without undue difficulty. Indeed, the twelve major canals in the country increased their tonnage from 10.5 to 14 million between 1838 and 1848. A whole set of technical and financial impediments retarded the early development of the steam railway. First there were the technical difficulties of adapting the heavy, cumbersome 18th-century steam engine for motion. These difficulties were not fully overcome until the invention of George Stephenson’s famous Rocket in 1829, the proto type...