This audiobook has been recorded using Text to speech (TTS).
The year is 1806 – a baby boy has just been born in a small English coastal town. This child was born into a world without the lightbulb, without cars; a world in which only two years previously mankind had discovered that steam could be used to power a locomotive engine. This was a time of rapid change – the industrial revolution was beginning and one of the world's greatest and most inventive minds was about to make history.
He would become one of the leading figures of this new technological age, helping to bring the world out of the darkness of the previous centuries, and into a new era of progress.
He was a visionary – an engineer and inventor of unparalleled ingenuity and ambition. With his railway projects he would conquer rivers, mountains, and vast stretches of land. His oceanic projects would produce the largest and most powerful ships the world had ever seen – helping thousands of people to bridge the continents and bringing mankind closer than ever before. His architectural projects would serve as testament to the ingenuity of mankind and would stamp his legacy upon the landscape. But his legacy endures in more than his constructions and inventions – his genius would come to inspire whole generations of new engineers, architects, and scientists – his legacy lives on all around us.
So, join us now, as we trace his story from its very beginnings – join us on an exploration of the life and times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.