Steven Brindle – författare

A celebration of the life and engineering achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by two of the world's foremost authorities.In his lifetime, Isambard Kingdom Brunel towered over his profession. Today, he remains the most famous engineer in history, the epitome of the volcanic creative forces which brought about the Industrial Revolution - and brought modern society into being. Brunel's extraordinary talents were drawn out by some remarkable opportunities - above all his appointment as engineer to the new Great Western Railway at the age of 26 - but it was his nature to take nothing for granted, and to look at every project, whether it was the longest railway yet planned, or the largest ship ever imagined, from first principles. A hard taskmaster to those who served him, he ultimately sacrificed his own life to his work in his tragically early death at the age of 53. His legacy, though, is all around us, in the railways and bridges that he personally designed, and in his wider influence. This fascinating new book draws on Brunel's own diaries, letters and sketchbooks to understand his life, times, and work.

A major new history of architecture in Britain and Ireland that looks at buildings and their construction in detail while revealing the cultural, material, political, and economic contexts that made them  Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 presents a comprehensive history of architecture in Britain during this three-hundred-year period. Drawing on the most important advances in architectural history in the last seventy years, ranging across cultural, material, political, and economic contexts, this book also encompasses architecture in Ireland and includes substantial commentary on the buildings of Scotland and Wales.   Across three chronological sections: 1530–1660, 1660–1760, and 1760–1830, this volume explores how architectural culture evolved from a subject carried solely in the minds and skills of craftsmen to being embodied in books and documents and with new professions—architects, surveyors and engineers—in charge. With chapters dedicated to towns and cities, landscape, infrastructure, military architecture, and industrial architecture, and beautifully illustrated with new photography, detailed graphics, and a wealth of historic images, Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 is an invaluable resource for students, historians, and anyone with an interest in the architecture of this period, and promises to become a definitive work of scholarship in the field.​Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art