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. This book looks at the history of the railway.