Isambard Kingdom Brunel
by L. T. C. Rolt · first published 1957
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4HN commenters
2018–2025first – last mentioned
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I see a lot of parallels between Elon and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's careers. Brunel was an excellent marketeer who consistently over-promised and under delivered. He also drove technology forward more than anyone else of his generation. When Brunel was making the…
on “Elon Musk’s Boring Co. Wins Chicago Airport High-Speed Train Bid” ↗I love seeing random Wiki pages hit the front page. On this topic I can highly recommend the book "The Lost Works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel". It was a fascinating read to learn of his impact on both bridges and trains, and neat to see a few sights from my visit to London years ago.
on “Isambard Kingdom Brunel” ↗You might want to look at a biography of Andrew Carnegie? Isambard Kingdom Brunel (and more, his father) might also be worth a look. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cl%C3%A4renore_Stinnes and her father also make for great reading.
on “Nellie Bly” ↗On the other hand, you have the man who built several of the biggest, which were also in many cases the first, successes in several different areas of engineering: Isambard Kingdom Brunel[0]. He built the largest ocean-going vessel of his time (the Great Western and the even bigger Great Eastern), the first tunnel under a navigable river (the Thames Tunnel), the longest bridge of its…
on “Gigantism is a never-ending temptation” ↗…remember reading a biography of him, but I don't remember which one it was (nor whether it was particularly good). Sorry. You could do worse than starting at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel Their article is quite extensive, and many parts have their own stand-alone articles. You can follow the 'Further Reading' section at the bottom of the article to find some suggestions for books.
on “Nellie Bly” ↗