"This is an interesting book shedding light on the dark world of the early textile industry".

The Society of Model and Experimental Engineers Journal - June 20232

As featured in: Derbyshire Book Club

Derbyshire Life

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

My inner history geek was exuberant at gaining access to this book! Just this week I’ve finished teaching the Industrial Revolution and my students have memorised Richard Arkwright, James Hargreaves, Samuel Crompton, Edmund Cartwright, Eli Whitney and John Kay and their contributions to the textile revolution in England in anticipation of our test next week. Imagine my shock at discovering what I’d so laboriously taught was incorrect! Now I feel responsible to add another lesson focusing on what I’ve learned this weekend - Richard Arkwright was a successful entrepreneur and a successful self-promoter.

The focus of this fantastic book is an examination of the rivalry that existed between Britain and France and the methods each used to gain an advantage over the other. The author suggests that while tourists were heading to admire Europe’s masterpieces, savants travelled Europe with the sole purpose of enlightening their economy. In short, there was a plague of industrial espionage in 18th-century Europe and ‘intelligent travel’ was the means of securing knowledge of mechanical advances.

This book aptly refutes and gives evidence to the contrary for two mistakes made in history: (1) Richard Arkwright did not invent the water frame and (2) he was not the Father of the British Factory System.

I was spellbound reading about ‘owlers,’ the far-reaching power of Cosimo de Medici, and the fight for organzine. Perhaps I was most shocked by the revelation of Zonca’s book sitting on a shelf in the Bodleian Library in Oxford while the court cases and accusations were happening! It truly was fascinating to sit at the crossroads of science and capitalism and watch it all play out from the sidelines.

This is a fascinating book, a quick read, that sets the record straight and acknowledges Italians and their role in the development of the textile industry in Britain.

NetGalley, Norma Fourchalk