One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Witold Rybczynski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2000

The seeds of Witold Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home: A Short History of an Idea and, most recently, A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest.

One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from Ancient Greece to Victorian Glasgow, from weapons design in the Italian Renaissance to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. The screwdriver, perhaps the last hand tool in a world gone cyber, represents nothing less than the triumph of precision.

One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In 1999, an editor of the New York Times Magazine approached Witold Rybczynski, the well-known student of architecture and urban design, and asked him to write a short essay on the best and most useful common tool of the past millennium. Rybczynski took the assignment, but when he began to look into the history of the items in his workshop--hammers and saws, levels and planes--he found that almost all of them had pedigrees that extended well into antiquity. Nearly ready to admit defeat, he asked his wife for ideas. Her answer was inspired: "You always need a screwdriver for something."

True enough. And, Rybczynski discovered, the screwdriver is a relative newcomer in humankind's arsenal of gadgetry, an invention of the late European Middle Ages and the only major mechanical device that the Chinese did not independently invent. Leonardo da Vinci got to it early on, of course, as he did so many other things, designing a number of screw-cutting machines with interchangeable gears. Still, it took generations for the screw (and with it the screwdriver and lathe) to come into general use, and it was not until the modern era that such improvements as slotted and socket screws came into being.

Rybczynski's explorations into that lineage, here expanded to book length, are highly entertaining, and sure to engage readers interested in the origins of everyday things. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Acclaimed hardware, household and landscape writer Rybczynski invites readers to see how the world got screwedAand why it took so long, and how it felt. Romans had most of our hand tools, though cranks are medieval; screws and screwdrivers, however, originatedAwhen? Scottish crafts manuals from around the time of the American Revolution give screwdrivers as "turnscrews"; the same word in French, tournevis, turns up in 1723. Even earlier, screws appeared as a spinoff from Renaissance warfare, keeping the parts of a matchlock rifle linked. Used in timepieces and armaments, the screws of the 16th century were hand-cutAboth expensive and unreliable. Efficient, widespread screwing required (a) more uses, to up the demand; (b) steam power, aka the Industrial Revolution; and (c) smart mechanics and engineers, who invented the manufacturing procedures that Rybczynski describes. Canada's Peter L. Robertson came up with the wondrous socket-head (square-holed) screw; the inferior Phillips (+-holed) head came later, but became standard outside Canada. Siege engines, early firearms like the arquebus, 19th-century child labor, the precision lathe, door hinges and the great minds of ancient Greek geometry also figure among the threads of Rybczynski's tightly wound exposition. A professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania, Rybczynski began this book after the New York Times asked him to pick the Tool of the Millennium. The short volume can feel like a bagatelle compared to Rybczynski's most ambitious projectsAhis biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, A Clearing in the Distance, or the endeavor (chronicled in his Home) of building his own house plank by plank. Nevertheless, Rybczynski's many fansAand those who care for the history of hardwareAwill want to stick their heads in his new book: many will find themselves fastened to its story. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 173 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (September 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068486729X
• ISBN-13: 978-0684867298
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,715,302 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Witold Rybczynski has written about architecture and urbanism for The New York Times, Time, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed book Home and the award-winning A Clearing in the Distance. His latest book is The Biography of a Building. The recipient of the National Building Museum's 2007 Vincent Scully Prize, he lives with his wife in Philadelphia, where he teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.
Read his blog at http://www.witoldrybczynski.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Screw Up Your Courage and Dive into Screwdrivers!, August 28, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (Paperback)

Although I had no interest in screwdrivers and screws when I started this book, the text provided a pleasant reading experience and I learned more than I thought I would. All in all, it was well worth the time spent. I think you will feel that way too, unless you have no interest at all in mechanical devices and the process of innovation. My favorite parts related to the innovations.

This book is composed of equal parts (1) why the author chose the screwdriver as the tool of the millennium for his article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine (2) where you have to go to find out about screwdrivers from the past (3) how he developed the information for this history of the screwdriver and screws and (4) the geniuses who developed the key advances in the technology of these useful devices. The style is a bit rambling, much like what would happen if you were chatting about the subject over a barbecue in the back yard with plenty of time on your hands. I can assure you this must be the most complete and authoritative book about screwdrivers and screws ever, especially since the author points out the virtual absence of any prior material turning up in his research.

Let me summarize the key areas. He picked the screwdriver as the tool of the millennium not because he thought of it, but because his wife told him that it was the one tool that she always kept around. After having gone through his own tool kit, he had not even thought of the screwdriver.

The first place where much shows up on the screwdriver in older texts is Diderot's Encyclopedia. In those days screwdrivers were called turnscrews.

To get a flavor of the screwdriver in the middle ages, when it seems to have appeared, you have to look into armor and early guns.

The screw goes back much further, showing up in useful form for Archimedes in Greek times as a way to raise water.

Screws later played many other important roles, especially in presses (including, of course, printing presses).

Lathes turned out (pun intended) to be an important related technology for making screws precise and consistent.

I learned about some interesting related technologies, including Greek mechanical devices with gears for calculating the orbits of heavenly bodies.

Then, we finally get down to gears and the development of improved lathes and the Robertson and Phillips screw heads. He prefers the Robertson (which I had never heard of before) which uses a socket top to screw in and remove screws.

At the end is a nice set of illustrations along with a glossary of tools.

This book is probably going to be a classic Father's Day gift for decades, along with a Robertson screwdriver, socket set, and screws.

Overcome your misconception that you know all you need to know about screwdrivers. You'll be pleasantly surprised by this gentle and unassuming book.

When you are done, pick something else you think you probably know enough about and search around to find a good book on that topic as well to expand your own knowledge further. Keep doing that, and some wonderful learning awaits you!

Donald Mitchell ([e-mail])

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Good Turn Deserves to be read., September 28, 2000

By 

Walter J. Maslowski "NO" (Forest Hills, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (Paperback)

Let's get the main question out of the way: Can an entire book devoted to the history of the screw and screwdriver possibly be worth reading? The answer is an unqualified yes. This small book takes an unusual, almost reverential, look at the the nature of tools and the mind of the inventor and innovator. Rybczynski recounts his research into the origins of this ubiquitous tool, so it is also a tale of the research process. He tells the story in a casual, personal style, making it an easy read. The book is not tightly focused on its subject, filled with many digressions and asides which are as interesting as the main narrative. One of my favorites concerns the invention of the the shirt button. It seems like the epitome of simplicity, and could have been made thousands of years ago, yet it took until the 1300's for some unknown genius to make the "leap of imagination" and conceive of the device, which seems simple but is not at all intuitive. The author asks the reader to imagine trying to explain the the "twist and flip" motion to some one who has never used one. Its nuggets like this, which make the reader look at common items from an entirely different perspective, that makes the book shine. It turns out that one of the first uses of the screw dates back to the Middle Ages, as a method of fastening the the brutally abused armor of jousting knights, and later to secure the matchlock mechanisms of the earliest firearms. However, in exploring the concept of the helix, the basis of the screw, the author reaches much further back in time, to the ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, who understood the shape and put it to use in irrigation and wine presses. My only peeve is that although the book is loaded with temporal dates, I still found them lacking in certain places where they were sorely needed to put events in perspective. Aside from that minor short-coming, this is a book about much more than just the screw and screwdriver, full of pleasant suprises and delightfull "twists". A must read.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars if Bob Vila and James Burke had a son, November 30, 2001

By 

audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (Paperback)

A New York Times editor asked Mr. Rybczynski to write an article about his choice for best tool of the millennium. One would think that this would involve deciding on a tool, researching its history and uses, and writing it up. But that would be too linear. Instead, the author takes us on a rambling walk through the toolbox. We learn not only about the development of many tools and machines (adze, augur, hammer, lathe, gears and presses), but about the scientists and inventors, even financiers, who contributed to the development of the screwdriver, and the applications (early firearms and clocks) that helped (literally) shape the device. We learn about the Phillips versus the Robertson screw, and the limitations of earlier lathes, which led to the first screws being handmade. Many interesting facts like this entertain and inform.

As a librarian I appreciated the author's friendly discussion of the references he found useful for his research. There are many black-and-white line drawings to help you visualize the items being discussed, as well as a notes section, a good index, and illustration credits.

Weaknesses: I would have liked to have read a brief discussion of the (seven?) Simple Machines, as I think many were discussed here, and it would have been an interesting reminder of things from physics class that I've forgotten. In addition, I looked up a quote by Plutarch in the Notes section, and the citation began "Quoted by E. J. Dijksterhuis .... " with no information about the actual source -- not much help!

This was a fun read. If you are the kind of person who enjoys browsing through the dictionary or a bookstore, you will probably enjoy this little gem of a volume by this handyman-storyteller.

Highly recommended.