The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

I received a copy of this book from Harper Collins in exchange for an honest review.

Today’s Nonfiction post is on The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester. It is 416 pages long and is published by Harper Collins. The cover is blue and white with a gear on top and the universe on the bottom. The intended reader is someone who is interested in engineers and engineering. There is no foul language, no sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools—machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras—and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider.
Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today’s cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia.
As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?

Review- This is a difficult book to read. Winchester has a potentially interesting student but it is weighted down by slow pacing and almost endless details that do not add to the narrative only make the story move slower. I wanted to like this book, the topic is interesting, the history of how the world became mechanical and so may interesting characters who helped make it so. But instead we get a slow, plodding story that is very difficult to engage with. Perhaps I just do not have the right mindset to read this book but I was so bored as I read it. I cannot recommend this book.

I give this book a Two out of Five stars.