Jeremy Black A World History of Rail review, recensie en informatie boek over de wereldgeschiedenis van spoorwegen. Op 15 juli 2025 verschijnt bij Amberley Publishing het boek A World History of Rail, From the Steam Regime to Today. Het boek is geschreven door Jeremy Black. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.
Jeremy Black A World History of Rail review en recensie
- “The book takes a global view of the development of the railways, starting with the early days of steam.” (Family Tree Magazine)
A World History of Rail
From the Steam Regime to Today
- Auteur: Jeremy Black (Engeland)
- Soort boek: spoorweggeschiedenis
- Taal: Engels
- Uitgever: Amberley Publishing
- Verschijnt: 15 juli 2025
- Omvang: 288 pagina’s
- Uitgave: paperback
- Prijs: £ 11,99
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol
Flaptekst van het boek over de geschiedenis van de spoorwegen
Is it possible to overestimate the impact of the railway in history? Jeremy Black analyses that impact from the beginning to today. And of course it’s not all a triumph. The network of the Congo today operates on three gauges run by separate companies; and a lot of it doesn’t work.
There were 20,000 miles of railways in 1865 and about a million by 2020. Scale has always been a key theme in railway history. In the First World War, the London and North West Railway transported 325,000 miles of barbed wire and over twelve million pairs of army boots. At the end of the twentieth century, Indian Railways sold 4.5 billion tickets annually. With his renowned ability to take the long view of any subject and bring it into sharp focus for the reader, Jeremy Black examines how rail transformed the world. While always shaped by commercial interests, the role of the railway was (and is) strategic in the broadest sense: like Roman roads and Chinese canals, it helped develop the economic links that sustained and strengthened the major powers. For example, the railway was fundamental in integrating the frontiers of settlement with the world economy, in the spread of cultivation and ranching, and in the exploitation of mining opportunities. Rail expanded the ‘logistical space’ of most states.
To give one modern example of the political importance of rail, Ukraine’s railway is on the 1.52 metre gauge, rather than the 1.435 metre one used in Poland and most of Europe. In 2022, Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, declared that the railways there would be rebuilt to the European gauge. This enhanced capability would counter the Russian ability to blockade Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, notably Odessa. The plan was not endorsed by the Kremlin
Jeremy Black is Professor of History at Exeter University. He is a prolific lecturer and writer, the author of over 100 books. Many concern aspects of eighteenth-century British, European and American political, diplomatic and military history but he has also published on the history of the press, cartography, warfare, culture and on the nature and uses of history itself. He sits on the editorial boards of History Today, International History Review, Journal of Military History, and Media History.