Steam power drove the
Industrial Revolution. That will not be news for most people who graduated from primary school. What may be less widely appreciated was the power of steam in driving the
mechanization of printing and book production during the industrial revolution. When I searched HistoryofInformation via the Keyword search for "steam" in December 2020 I found about 120 entries referencing steam power, the great majority of which documented references to printing and book production. The most basic contribution made to printing and book production by the Industrial Revolution was the application of stationery steam engines to paper making and printing machines.
When I started collecting original material on Book Production in the Industrial
Jeremy Norman’s