FROM OUR EDITORS

Our Review
This charming little book by the author of Home and A Clearing in the Distance came out of an assignment Rybczynski took on for The New York Times Magazine. During millennial fever, all sorts of "best-of" lists were being compiled. Rybczynski's project was "The Best Tool of the Millennium," a more difficult task than it might seem at first glance because so many of our standard tools were invented long before the year A.D.1000. For example, the screw was mentioned in a text dated to A.D. 66, in the context of a screw press (for processing grapes and olives), so this familiar item alone could actually qualify as the best tool of the last two millennia. The first half of One Good Turn chronicles Rybczynski's quest for the earliest mention of the screwdriver, while the second half is a history of its predecessor.

Rybczynski's quest for the origins of the screwdriver initially ran into several dead ends. References, such as the venerable Encyclopaedia Britannica, dated the screwdriver to 1800. This relatively late date intrigues Rybczynski, and his book turns into a detective story of sorts, filled with musty tomes showing medieval contraptions held together by screws with slotted heads -- a simple deduction being that where there are screws there must be screwdrivers. At first, terminology is the problem. The word "screwdriver" makes a late appearance because the tool was previously known by the name "turnscrew," perhaps a translation of the French tournevis. Rybczynski sets his sights on France and pushes back the first mention to the mid-18th century. This date doesn't satisfy, though, because the tool looks too "finished" to be the very first screwdriver. The 1556 text De Re Metallica is clearly illustrated with a slotted-head screw. Then the idea occurs to Rybczynski that warfare has traditionally been the mother of invention. At last he finds an example with the oldest screw in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is on a piece of 15th-century armor. So the screwdriver is at least 500 years old. But tools, such as presses, that use the screw shape are much older and widely used. The ancient Romans even had linen presses. So who invented the screw? The concept of a screw is not intuitively obvious like other tools, such as a saw. As Rybczynski points out, the water screws of the 2nd century B.C. represent perhaps the first human creation of a helix. Rybczynski posits that it was the great mathematician Archimedes (of "Eureka!" fame) who is credited with the invention of the water screw and who therefore should be known as the Father of the Screw -- perhaps a greater leap of imagination than has been recognized by posterity.

-- Laura Wood, Science & Nature Editor

FROM THE PUBLISHER

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.

FROM THE CRITICS

Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post

...a slender, informative and thoroughly charming book....In this as in virtually everything else he has written, Rybczynski himself reveals a gift that is itself no mean thing: for getting to the heart of the matter.

Library Journal

What a delightful book! Who would have guessed that something as ordinary and useful as the screwdriver and the screw would also be so fascinating. When asked by the New York Times Magazine to write an essay on the best tool of the past thousand years, cultural historian Rybczynski (A Clearing in the Distance) struggled to find one, as most tools are far older, until he hit upon the screwdriver and the screw (although these instruments also may have mysterious origins that precede the millennium). In his trademark clear, elegant prose, Rybczynski traces the history of the screwdriver and screw from Hero's screw press and Archimedes' water screw to the 20th century's Phillips head. Home craftspeople, artists, history buffs, and engineers will delight in the story he tells--how such humble tools influenced society. Rybczynski points out that in the hands of mechanical geniuses like Henry Maudslay (1771-1831), the ability to fully exploit the screw led directly to precision tool making and the resulting enormous strides in building steam engines, railroads, bridges, etc. In writing this book, Rybczynski draws from art, literature, history, and engineering; readers will find themselves checking, as did Rybczynski, the details of illustrations and paintings for further clues. Highly recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/00.]--Michael D. Cramer, Raleigh, NC Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Internet Book Watch

The New York Times asked this author to write an essay identifying the 'best tool of the millennium' the result was this celebration of the screwdriver, a survey which shows how the invention and applications of the screwdriver changed the course of history. Black and white illustrations compliment a lively history.

M.R. Montgomery - The New York Times Book Review

[M]idway through the book, the fascinating digressions [begin]. . . . Rybczynski argues convincingly that the application of helical adjustment is one of the core principles of the Industrial Revolution.

Kirkus Reviews

As much as Frederick Law Olmstead, the hero of Rybczynski's acclaimed previous effort (A Clearing in the Distance, 1999), changed the face of America, the subject of his new study has changed the world.