The World the Railways Made

The modern world began with the arrival of the railway. The shock was both sudden and universal: between 1825, when the first passenger service came into operation linking Stockton and Darlington, and the outbreak of World War I, railways redefined, transformed and expanded the limits of the civilized world. With railways came the development of modern capitalism, of modern nations, the opening-up of new regions from the American Mid-West to Siberia, from Lake Victoria to the pampas of Argentina, changing not only the way the world looked, but the way it felt. "The World the Railways Made" considers the effect this new technology had on the fabric of people's lives. For some the "Iron Road" represented the horrors of industrial development; for others it symbolized the way forward to a brighter future; for nearly all it meant deep and lasting change.
From the new breed of financiers who provided unprecedented amounts of capital, to the floating communities of Irish and Chinese who built them; from the paintings of Turner to the enriched and broadened diet that railways brought to all - Nicholas Faith's social history explores the railway revolution which turned the world upside-down.