Dibnah’s history of steam power, which ties in with the BBC TV series, begins well before we might expect, tracing ideas from Hero of Alexandria through Isaac Newton to the eccentric pioneer Newcomen. It details the dramatic leaps forward taken by Watt and Stephenson which brought the railway network, and the spectacular age of steam-driven ships: the massive ocean liners with metal hulls built according to the vision of Dibnah’s greatest hero, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. But Dibnah also covers less obvious aspects of this revolution, such as steam-powered road vehicles, and the more recent age of the steam-turbine, developed by Charles Parsons – one of the least celebrated but most important steam technologists. As one would expect of Dibnah, his style is down to earth yet steeped in expertise born of a natural curiosity for how things work: the hardware, the underlying principles and the imaginations of the inventors.

This is inevitably an elegiac book, loving testimony to a seemingly lost era of beautiful machines and elegant engineering. But at the same time it reminds us of a simple and powerful technology which still has much to offer, being dependent ultimately on water and heat. Dibnah points out that the era of steam is not really over, although the buildings are now empty shells – or museums, or art galleries – and the machinery that he loved is now almost vanished. Steam is still with us. Even nuclear power stations generate energy using the principles of steam power. Moreover, the pollution associated with the era of heavy machinery arose from coal, not from the clean technology of steam, which is well suited to the environmentally aware 21st century.

This is an engaging tribute to an important industry and its powerful and beautiful machines. If you’re inspired to pursue the subject further, an appendix lists where one can see steam engines today in Britain.