Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in by Paul Lucier PDF

By Paul Lucier

ISBN-10: 0801890039

ISBN-13: 9780801890031

In this impressively researched and hugely unique paintings, Paul Lucier explains how technological know-how turned a vital part of yankee expertise and within the 19th century. Scientists and Swindlers introduces us to a brand new provider of execs: the consulting scientists. Lucier follows those entrepreneurial males of technology on their wide-ranging advertisement engagements from the seashores of Nova Scotia to the coast of California and indicates how their cutting edge paintings fueled the swift development of the yank coal and oil industries and the increase of yank geology and chemistry. alongside the way in which, he explores the decisive battles over services and authority, the high-stakes lawsuits over patenting study, the exciting and infrequently funny exploits of swindlers, and the profound moral demanding situations of doing technology for money.

Starting with the small surveying companies of the 1830s and attaining to the origins of utilized technology within the Eighties, Lucier recounts the advanced and curious relatives that developed as geologists, chemists, capitalists, and politicians labored to set up clinical learn as a valid, on a regular basis compensated, and revered company. This sweeping narrative enriches our figuring out of the way the rocks underneath our toes turned helpful assets for technological know-how, expertise, and industry.

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Scientists and Swindlers: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820--1890: Consulting on Coal and Oil in America, 1820-1890 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) by Paul Lucier


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