Originally published in 1934, this book contains papers written by Charles Algernon Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine.

From Galaxies to Turbines: Science, Technology and the Parsons Family looks at the way science and industry relate to each other, and at the way social attitudes affect this relationship. An expert on the Parsons Family, the author beautifully illustrates this by tracing the story of the remarkable endeavors of the Parsons family during the 125 years that embraced their lives in Ireland and Great Britain during the developing Industrial Revolution. The father of the family, William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, discovered the Spiral Nebulae at his observatory in Ireland and displayed an unusual familiarity with engineering principles in the building of his two giant telescopes. His son, Charles, was at the forefront of the new age of technology among shipbuilders and engineers in the northeast coast of England. Lavishly illustrated throughout, with a handy family tree and map of the River Tyne pin-pointing key historic events, this is a highly accessible and fascinating account for the general reader interested in the way scientific knowledge and industrial application have slowly emerged in recent history.

HMS Dreadnought (1906) is closely associated with the age of empire, the Anglo-German antagonism and the naval arms race before the First World War. Yet it was also linked with a range of other contexts - political and cultural, national and international - that were central to the Edwardian period. The chapters in this volume investigate these contexts and their intersection in this symbolically charged icon of the Edwardian age. In reassessing the most famous warship of the period, this collection not only considers the strategic and operational impact of this 'all big gun' battleship, but also explores the many meanings Dreadnought had in politics and culture, including national and imperial sentiment, gender relations and concepts of masculinity, public spectacle and images of technology, and ideas about modernity and decline. The volume brings together historians from different backgrounds, working on naval and technological history, politics and international relations, as well as culture and gender. This diverse approach to the subject ensures that the book offers a timely revision of the Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age.'

An intriguing look at the marginal sciences of the nineteenth century and their influence on the culture of the period.

The nineteenth-century Royal Navy was transformed from a fleet of sailing wooden walls into a steam powered machine. Britain’s warships were her first line of defence, and their transformation dominated political, engineering and scientific discussions. They were the products of engineering ingenuity, political controversies, naval ideologies and the fight for authority in nineteenth-century Britain. Shaping the Royal Navy provides the first cultural history of technology, authority and the Royal Navy in the years of Pax Britannica. It places the story firmly within the currents of British history to reconstruct the controversial and high-profile nature of naval architecture. The technological transformation of the Navy dominated the British government and engineering communities. This book explores its history, revealing how ship design became a modern science, the ways that actors competed for authority within the British state and why the nature of naval power changed.