To quote some salient points from the sales blurb,
 

It is “the story of power from the time of Hero. Who did it and why. What problems they faced and how [they were] solved. This is a story of the evolution and growth of energy that basically NO ONE understands. [Look at all the] alternative energy projects begun. EVERY ONE of them has FAILED, died in flames because those doing it did NOT understand the true evolution of energy which is so finely illustrated in this book. If you want to be in the energy field, you better know Hero, Papin, Newcomen, Savery, Watt, Otto and Diesel.
 

“There are no politics or false beliefs in this book. It is raw history … a treasure. For example, to realize exactly how little horse power it took to move the first 10,000 pound locomotive at 18 mph, [consider the lack of resistance and the consequent energy savings of having] steel wheels on steel rails.”
 

One can’t help noticing that the story of power is the story of winning and losing, and not just among the individual competitions for inventiveness. “The Conservative Party,” as the book charmingly labels the reactionary forces arrayed against change, is beaten again and again in this compressed version of the history of invention. The inventive genius of the individual mind, in slow grinding progress, triumps over conservative forces to add increment after increment to accumulated technical knowledge in a passion play of the evolving state of science. This is truly the story of a harvest of the fruits of The Enlightenment by these “natural philosophers.”
 

This book ends with the coming to prominence of oil at the end of the first third of the twentieth century, where most of our history books on power and engines seem to start. It was written some three quarters of a century ago, in 1932. The Hoover Dam was under construction and the Great Depression was descending on the world. World War II was little more than a half dozen years into the future. But it has the imperative of required reading for today’s world. The writing style is quaint by twenty-first century standards, but don’t feel this is a disadvantage. In fact, I’d say its phrasing alone, poetic by any standard, makes this book worth its price. For example,
 

“The steam engine, as Watt knew it in 1759, was a mechanism with the disposition, but without the strength, of a smallish mule; to apply it to locomotion would have been like applying a cough to the mains’ls of a Dutch East Indiaman.”
 

And another, from the final chapter,
 

“These are the machines which, regardless of whether we like it or not, are changing the lives of everyone. It is a change of constant acceleration. Julius Caesar could have returned to the world of George Washington with very little confusion to himself; he would have found boundaries, costumes, and society very different, and would have bemoaned them, of course; but he would have been quite familiar with all the means to agriculture, transportation, and mining. But Ulysses S. Grant, who died in 1885, could not orient himself in today’s world without the patient help of a psychiatrist.“                 
 

Knowledge Publications is the publisher of BEHEMOTH, as well as of a number of books and DVDs on power, particularly the homegrown variety. Think extension of “The Mother Earth News” and you probably have a good picture of their menu. There are how-to’s on electricity, insulation, photovoltaic cells, solar furnaces and hot air collectors, solar air conditioning and ice making, to name a few. I intend to order a couple of these for guidance for future home projects.
 

If you would like to spend some enjoyable time acquainting yourself with vital information about our past that has TOTAL bearing on everything to do with how we came to our current power capabilities, this is a great choice. I give it four stars.    
 

© 2006 R. Leland Waldrip