Dyson's 2001 survey of invention from the wheel to the gene chip, edited by Robert Uhlig. Each chapter covers an era through its defining machines — the steam engine, electricity, the transistor — with Dyson inserting his own commentary on what each advance meant for the people who built it.
Dyson wrote this not as a reference work but as a credo. The through-line is his conviction that engineers, not financiers, make a country rich — and that every era's great leaps came from people who ignored what experts said was impossible. The introduction makes the argument explicit: 'Civilisation is founded on engineering. Without it we would still be living in caves.' He is telling you what he believes makes the world go forward, and by extension what he built Dyson to participate in.