The maritime history of Cornwall

Abstract

tanka in St. Petersburg. Here, he developed a model of a pile driving machine that, he claimed, would replace the need for three-quarters of the prevailing labour force (123). However, we know very little about the machine or its future trajectory. In the rush to trace the origins of modern science to an eighteenth century industrial enlightenment and knowledge economy the shop floor and lived experience gets lost. We thus need to know a great deal more about Samuel’s interactions at the everyday practical level before we can truly understand how his approach was forged. Samuel was, primarily, a practical man with a deep interest in the materials used in the production of ships; this is further reflected in the particular manufactures he tried to develop while in Russia. Moreover we need to know much more about Samuel’s encounter and understanding of labour customs and legal regulations in both Russia and Britain to grasp the purpose of the managerial system he created (see, especially, Alessandro Stanziani, ‘The traveling panopticon: labor institutions and labor practices in Russia and Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 51, no. 4 (October 2009)). This book, however, is a very useful contribution to furthering our understanding of both Samuel and contemporary approaches to the military-industrial complex.