The Life and Legend of James Wattoffers a deeper understanding of the work and character of the great eighteenth-century engineer.
He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a member of the International Academy of the History of Science..
About the Author: David Philip Miller is emeritus professor of history of science at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
The Legend created in his later years and "afterlife" claimed too much of nineteenth-century technology for Watt, but that Legend was, and remains, a powerful cultural force.
As Miller demonstrates, Watt\'s accomplishments relied heavily on collaborations, not always acknowledged, with business partners, employees, philosophical friends, and, not least, his wives, children, and wider family.
But Watt pursued the business of Natural Philosophy in a way characteristic of his roots in the Scottish "improving" tradition that was in tension with Enlightenment sensibilities.
A skilled and creative engineer, Watt was also a compulsive experimentalist drawn to Natural philosophical inquiry, and a chemistry of heat underlay much of his work, including his Steam engineering.
Stripping away layers of Legend built over generations, David Philip Miller finds behind the heroic engineer a conflicted man often diffident about his achievements but also ruthless in protecting his inventions and ideas, and determined in pursuit of money and fame.
The Life and Legend of James Wattoffers a deeper understanding of the work and character of the great eighteenth-century engineer
