Brunel
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today more than 150 years after they were built. Brunel represented the cutting edge of technological innovation in Victorian Britain, and his life gives us a window onto the social changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Yet his work was not always successful, and his innovative approach to engineering projects was often greeted with suspicion from investors.
Guests:
Julia Elton, former President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology
Ben Marsden, Senior Lecturer in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen
Crosbie Smith, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Kent
Producer: Luke Mulhall.
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Ben Marsden at the University of Aberdeen
Crosbie Smith at the University of Kent
Isambard Kingdom Brunel - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Steam - Museum of the Great Western Railway
Isambard Kingdom Brunel - Wikipedia
READING LIST:
Steven Brindle, Brunel: The Man Who Built The World (Phoenix, 2006)
Angus Buchanan, Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (London & Hambledon, 2002; Bloomsbury, 2007)
Ewan Corlett, The Iron Ship: The History and Significance of Brunel’s Great Britain (Moonraker Press, 1975)
George S. Emmerson, John Scott Russell: A Great Victorian Engineer and Naval Architect (John Murray, 1977)
Denis Griffiths, Andrew Lambert and Fred Walker, Brunel’s Ships (National Maritime Museum/Chatham Publishing, 1999)
Ben Marsden and Crosbie Smith, Engineering Empires: A Cultural History of Technology in Nineteenth Century Britain (Macmillan, 2005)
Alfred Pugsley, The Works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel: An Engineering Appreciation (Cambridge University Press, 1980)
L. T. C. Rolt, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Penguin, 1990)
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Melvyn Bragg |
| Interviewed Guest | Julia Elton |
| Interviewed Guest | Ben Marsden |
| Interviewed Guest | Crosbie Smith |
| Producer | Luke Mulhall |
Broadcasts
- Thu 13 Nov 2014 09:00BBC Radio 4
- Thu 13 Nov 2014 21:30BBC Radio 4
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