The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by
The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of
Home,
A Clearing in the Distance, and
Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest.
One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.
Author: Witold Rybczynski
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: 09/11/2001
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.3lbs
Size: 7.50h x 5.14w x 0.51d
ISBN: 9780684867304
About the AuthorRybczynski, Witold: - Witold Rybczynski has written about architecture and urbanism for
The New York Times,
Time,
The Atlantic, and
The New Yorker. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book
Home and the award-winning
A Clearing in the Distance, as well as
The Biography of a Building,
The Mysteries of the Mall, and
Now I Sit Me Down. The recipient of the National Building Museum's 2007 Vincent Scully Prize, he lives with his wife in Philadelphia, where he is emeritus professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.