The New Lunar Society

How to create our industrial future with inspiration and lessons from the originators of the industrial revolution. Climate change, global disruption, and labor scarcity are forcing us to rethink the underlying principles of industrial society. In The New Lunar Society, David Mindell envisions this new industrialism from the fundamentals, drawing on the eighteenth century when first principles were formed at the founding of the Industrial Revolution. While outlining the new industrialism, he tells the story of the Lunar Society, a group of engineers, scientists, and industrialists who came together to apply the principles of the Enlightenment to industrial processes. Those principles were collaboration, the marriage of practical and scientific knowledge, and the belief that the world could progress through making things. The Lunar Society included pioneers like James Watt, Benjamin Franklin, and Josiah Wedgwood, and their conversations no less than ignited the Industrial Revolution and shaped the founding of the United States. Telling the stories of these makers in parallel with those of our current moment of crisis on multiple fronts, Mindell argues for a new industrialism. He asks: What does industry look like when it strives to optimize for the lowest carbon footprint as well as the greatest profit? When it values resilience as much as efficiency? When it upholds dignified, inclusive, sustainable work? Optimistic but not utopian about our ability to build the world, The New Lunar Society shines a light on how a new generation can reanimate the best ideas of our thinking doer forebears and begin to build a future that is both realistic and human-centered.

David Mindell is Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT. He has led or participated in more than 25 oceanographic expeditions, written seven books, and holds 34 patents in RF navigation, autonomous systems, and AI-assisted piloting. He is also Founder and Executive Chair of Humatics, a navigation technology company, and Cofounder of Unless, an investment firm that is catalyzing the next industrial revolution.

1. Watt’s Heroic Invention 2. On the Cusp of Industrial Transformation 3. Industrial Habits of Mind 4. Building Things, Not Climbing Ladders 5. On Counting Revolutions 6. A Steampunk Fairy Tale That Actually Happened 7. Shadows of Industrial Enlightenment 8. Birmingham Awake with Toys 9. Designed in California . . . Made Where? 10. Fabricating the Pin Factory 11. The Lifeblood of Industrial Societies 12. “Master of every metallic art” 13. Industry 14. The Industrious Revolution 15. The Great Toilet Paper Crisis 16. Supply Chains Are Us 17. Jefferson’s Enlightenment Teacher 18. Conquering with Pottery 19. “Turning the mill by fire” 20. The Work of the Future 21. James Watt, Frail Craftsman 22. Automation and Work 23. “To settle a manufactory” 24. How You Get to Work 25. Death forms the Lunar Society 26. “Steam mill mad” 27. “Get excited about maintenance” 28. Jefferson’s lost world 29. Cults of Newness and the Challenge of Adoption 30. Reindustrializing America 31. “To astonish the world, all at once” 32. Generations of Industrial Transformation 33. Human Machines at Etruria 34. A Republic of Industry 35. From Revere to R&D 36. Beyond Boulton and Watt: Steam for Mobility 37. An R&D System Adrift 38. Manufacturing Social Change 39. “No Philosophers!” 40. New Industrialists 41. Lunar Societies Today 42. New Industrialism 43. Collaborative Heroes 44. Industrial Futures Acknowledgments Bibliography Index