The Technology Book is a guided tour of the technology of the modern world. As part of the author team, I had a brief to write about technologies developed between 1880 and 1915, a period that saw the advent of a glittering catalogue of mod cons including public electricity supply, skyscrapers, bicycles, cars, wind turbines, electric vehicles, AC motors, ovens, radio, cinema, X-rays, air conditioning, aeroplanes, plastics, vacuum cleaners, synthetic fertilisers, and the assembly line. Along with the stories behind these breakthroughs, entries explore the problems the inventions solve – and create – and their impacts on our lives.
The page format includes memorable quotes about each development, in pursuit of which I spent long, happy periods scouring newspaper and magazine archives. I am also pleased to say that I was able to place each invention in a gradual evolution of ideas instead of linking it only with one individual creator. This reflects reality much better than the ‘lone hero’ approach of many technology books which also tends to erase less prominent members of society including most women.
I also included a directory entry for technology at its worst, in the form of the machine gun. This horrifying triumph of ingenuity saw nations colonised and stripped of their natural resources to feed the machinery of development in richer countries.
The project editor is Peter Frances, and my thanks go to David and Sylvia Tombesi-Walton and also consultant James Sumner.
The Technology Book is out now. You can buy other DK titles I have contributed to, The Periodic Table, and Simply Chemistry, from bookshops. My other books, Cracking the Elements and Quantum Physics are not in UK shops so if you’d like to get hold of a copy, please contact me at r.mileham@gmail.com. I also hope to be at more book fairs and festivals during 2026. Below is a video introducing the book.
