Product Description

Why did Peter L. Robertson think he had the “biggest little invention of the twentieth century”?How did a quest to improve the precision of the screw result in Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery? And how did Witold Rybczynski discover the true origins of the screwdriver in an obscure15th-century tome known as the Medieval Housebook, despite historians’ claims that it had not been invented until three centuries later?

In a narrative that reads like a satisfying detective story, Witold Rybczynski takes the humble screwdriver and turns it into an object of mystery, a seemingly simple tool that has driven its way into our history, politics, technology and even fashion.

Along the way he introduces us to a cast of inventors, artisans, tool makers and factory owners whose ingenuity has helped to shape our most essential household tools. From the genius of Leonardo da Vinci to the ambitious marketing plans of Canadian Peter Robertson (critics agree that the Robertson screwdriver is still superior to the Phillips), One Good Turn is a book for all those who love tools and inventions, woodwork and metalwork, and who are curious to know more about the origins of our mechanical world.

Written in Rybczynski’s trademark intelligent, fluid style, and backed by meticulous research, One Good Turn is infused with the author’s personal sense of discovery and enthusiasm for his subject.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #659500 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-10
• Binding: Hardcover
• 173 pages

From Amazon.com
In 1999, an editor of the New York Times Magazine approached Witold Rybczynski, the well-known student of architecture and urban design, and asked him to write a short essay on the best and most useful common tool of the past millennium. Rybczynski took the assignment, but when he began to look into the history of the items in his workshop--hammers and saws, levels and planes--he found that almost all of them had pedigrees that extended well into antiquity. Nearly ready to admit defeat, he asked his wife for ideas. Her answer was inspired: "You always need a screwdriver for something."

True enough. And, Rybczynski discovered, the screwdriver is a relative newcomer in humankind's arsenal of gadgetry, an invention of the late European Middle Ages and the only major mechanical device that the Chinese did not independently invent. Leonardo da Vinci got to it early on, of course, as he did so many other things, designing a number of screw-cutting machines with interchangeable gears. Still, it took generations for the screw (and with it the screwdriver and lathe) to come into general use, and it was not until the modern era that such improvements as slotted and socket screws came into being.

Rybczynski's explorations into that lineage, here expanded to book length, are highly entertaining, and sure to engage readers interested in the origins of everyday things. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Acclaimed hardware, household and landscape writer Rybczynski invites readers to see how the world got screwedAand why it took so long, and how it felt. Romans had most of our hand tools, though cranks are medieval; screws and screwdrivers, however, originatedAwhen? Scottish crafts manuals from around the time of the American Revolution give screwdrivers as "turnscrews"; the same word in French, tournevis, turns up in 1723. Even earlier, screws appeared as a spinoff from Renaissance warfare, keeping the parts of a matchlock rifle linked. Used in timepieces and armaments, the screws of the 16th century were hand-cutAboth expensive and unreliable. Efficient, widespread screwing required (a) more uses, to up the demand; (b) steam power, aka the Industrial Revolution; and (c) smart mechanics and engineers, who invented the manufacturing procedures that Rybczynski describes. Canada's Peter L. Robertson came up with the wondrous socket-head (square-holed) screw; the inferior Phillips (+-holed) head came later, but became standard outside Canada. Siege engines, early firearms like the arquebus, 19th-century child labor, the precision lathe, door hinges and the great minds of ancient Greek geometry also figure among the threads of Rybczynski's tightly wound exposition. A professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, Rybczynski began this book after the New York Times asked him to pick the Tool of the Millennium. The short volume can feel like a bagatelle compared to Rybczynski's most ambitious projectsAhis biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, A Clearing in the Distance, or the endeavor (chronicled in his Home) of building his own house plank by plank. Nevertheless, Rybczynski's many fansAand those who care for the history of hardwareAwill want to stick their heads in his new book: many will find themselves fastened to its story. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
What a delightful book! Who would have guessed that something as ordinary and useful as the screwdriver and the screw would also be so fascinating. When asked by the New York Times Magazine to write an essay on the best tool of the past thousand years, cultural historian Rybczynski (A Clearing in the Distance) struggled to find one, as most tools are far older, until he hit upon the screwdriver and the screw (although these instruments also may have mysterious origins that precede the millennium). In his trademark clear, elegant prose, Rybczynski traces the history of the screwdriver and screw from Hero's screw press and Archimedes' water screw to the 20th century's Phillips head. Home craftspeople, artists, history buffs, and engineers will delight in the story he tellsDhow such humble tools influenced society. Rybczynski points out that in the hands of mechanical geniuses like Henry Maudslay (1771-1831), the ability to fully exploit the screw led directly to precision tool making and the resulting enormous strides in building steam engines, railroads, bridges, etc. In writing this book, Rybczynski draws from art, literature, history, and engineering; readers will find themselves checking, as did Rybczynski, the details of illustrations and paintings for further clues. Highly recommended for all collections.
-DMichael D. Cramer, Raleigh, NC
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.