The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures a three-volume book on, as the name suggests, the manufacture of goods, the machines that manufacture those goods and, of course, the organization of those who operate the machines themselves. It was an early influential work of operational research and is today best remembered, at best, as a seminal work on the organization of factories and production – the one in which the famous “Babbage principle” was first set forth – or, at worst, as a curio of the Industrial Revolution. Author Charles Babbage is perhaps better known for his creation of the analytical engine, his association with Ada Lovelace and his modern title as the “father of the computer,” but he was also an astute economist theorist and, in his The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, he convincingly displays his acumen for economics and the organization of industrial production.

In this famous book, first published in 1832, Charles Babbage (1791-1871), the mathematician, philosopher, engineer and inventor who originated the concept of a programmable computer, surveys manufacturing practices and discusses the political, moral and economic factors affecting them. The book met with hostility from the publishing industry on account of Babbage's analysis of the manufacture and sale of books. Babbage describes the many different printing processes of the time, analyses the costs of book production and explains the publication process, before discussing the 'too large' profit margins of booksellers. Babbage succeeded in his aim 'to avoid all technical terms, and to describe in concise language', making this an eminently readable historical account. His analysis and promotion of mechanisation and efficient 'division of labour' (still known as the 'Babbage principle') continue to resonate strongly for modern industrial engineering.