A very interesting book with a lot of illustrations and fascinating material on the history of technical inventions To aid the inventor (as Edison invented). From the history of the machine (the machines of ancient peoples, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the steam engine, the perpetual motion machine, the solar machines, the famous automata, the talking machines) Transport before (precursors of the car, first railways, history of the bicycle, first round-the-world flight). From the history of communication technology (the history of the telegraph, the first cable across the ocean, the telephone, the history of the pen and typewriter, the history of the book) From the past of useful inventions (the history of the match, the struggle for light, the past of the stove, the history of rubber, the history of the clock) Russian machinery in the past (communications, mining and metallurgy, construction, lighting, glassmaking, the first steam engines in Russia) .