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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.

Available now

45 minutes

Last on

Thu 13 Nov 2014 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

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鈥檚 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鈥檚 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 09:00
  • Thu 13 Nov 2014 21:30

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