George Dyson’s memorable and unusual book is a mix of a philosophical tract, an adventure story and a description of how humans and nature interact. The author is a historian of technology. He takes us on a journey to discover the combinations of forces, materials and experiences that shape the world’s existence. We learn a lot about radio communication and software, and animal science and plankton. How the world makes things enters the story too. If you think you need a short, sharp dose of self-education, read this book.

Imagine you’re trapped in a pub on a cold and wet afternoon, and have a few hours to spare. Distinguished science writer Colin Tudge is someone you’d be happy to spend the time with. Tudge talks and writes like a dream. He can opine, often persuasively, on a range of topics. Tudge’s key interest is farming. Too much agriculture, he says, is unsustainable, bad for the planet and driven by greed. But his book covers many other subjects. Tudge unfolds his thoughts on manufacturing and how best it should be organised. We discover his take on disease management, the arts and the climate crisis. His underlying theme is that at heart humans are “convivial” - amicable, cooperative and responsible. Too often, they steer off course. But he says that if the world manages its affairs correctly, conviviality will win. We must hope he’s right.

If you like manufacturing, you will like this book. It’s a blow-by-blow account – told from the inside - of how Brompton Bicycle grew from an unsure start to an outstanding success story. The company is the UK’s biggest bike maker with 800 employees based mainly in its main plant in London. (It has also been a strong supporter of Made Here Now.) Will Butler-Adams is a resourceful engineer who joined Brompton in 2002. He took over as chief executive in 2008. With collaborator Dan Davies, Butler-Adams has produced an absorbing account of how the company took on the challenge of creating unique folding bicycles that would do three things equally well – look good, work reliably and be capable of being made efficiently. The book has a lot on the “how do they do it?” to side manufacturing. It covers things like jigs and fixtures and the characteristics of different metals and plastic. Especially rewarding are Butler-Adams’s glimpses into his relationship with Andrew Ritchie, a brilliant yet hard-to-handle engineer who started the company in 1975 and has retained a back-room presence.

It’s coming home. We all know the chant by England sports fans seeking – so far unsuccessfully – a new triumph on the world football stage. But can the adage hold good for manufacturing and other parts of modern industry? Throughout history, the material requirements of consumers have been met largely by local sources. That notion began to unravel from the 1960s onwards. Global supply chains jerked into motion, stimulated by the rise of China. More recently, other factors have pushed the trend into reverse. The new forces include technology advances such as 3D printing and changes in relative costs. Countries generally regarded as being part of the rich world are no longer prohibitively expensive. In this comprehensive book, Financial Times journalist Rana Foroohar examines the evidence for local manufacturing becoming a force to reckon with.

Most people don’t give materials much thought. But they hold the world together. Ed Conway believes providing a greater understanding of these building blocks is a worthwhile thing to do. Almost certainly – after reading his vivid and exceptionally well-written book – you will agree. A journalist at Sky News, Conway has travelled the world to glean stories about six key materials – sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium – without which human existence would be impossible. The account describes the manoeuvring by governments and companies over how best to control supply. Inescapable is the extent to which these substances are indelibly connected to just about everything we do.

Michelle Segrest loves factories. Since 2008 the US-based consultant has been visiting plants around the world to find out how they work. Her book - the first of a collection of similar case studies by the author - gives the inside track on nine factories making products from medicines to motors. Segrest adds a chapter on the likely benefits and pitfalls associated with additive manufacturing. Collections of case studies have limitations. They date quickly. Drawing industry-wide conclusions from an individual firm’s experience requires a deftness that is sometimes missing from this narrative. Nonetheless Segrest’s on-the ground reporting has value.

For almost two decades, Carlos Ghosn was a manufacturing superstar. The Brazilian-born industrialist presided over an ambitious alliance between Renault of France and Japan’s Nissan, two big carmakers. But Ghosn faced massive differences in cultures, and a series of often warring interest groups. Enemies multiplied, affronted by what they saw as his innate arrogance and huge pay packet. The end came in 2018 when Ghosn was arrested and charged under Japan’s financial laws. Hans Greimel and William Sposato have written a pacy account of the forces behind his downfall. But the narrative jumps back and forth in years, making for a confusing read. And nowhere do we see the answer to this question: were the cars Ghosn’s empire made any good?

Every manufacturing company must have started from somewhere. Hermann Kronseder was among thousands of young men with engineering skills who emerged from the wreckage of 1940s Germany with a business idea. In 1951 he set up a company making simple machines for labelling beer bottles. From this unpromising beginning has emerged a global leader in making automated bottling lines for big drinks producers. Based near Regensburg in southern Germany, Krones has annual sales of €4.7bn and 18,000 employees. Kronseder died in 2010. His son Volker went on to run the family-controlled company and is now chairman of the supervisory board. While the book is far from new, it deserves to be read for ideas on the two key ingredients Kronseder brought to his enterprise. He was determined to succeed. And he gained joy from inventing mechanisms that did a job better than anyone had managed before.

Yorkshire businessman Sir Andrew Cook is chairman of Sheffield-based steel castings maker William Cook. Since 1981 he’s been the driving force behind a company which continues as a global force. It makes and sells high-tech products for industries including oil and gas and construction. The book is a colourful account of a 1990s business struggle in which William Cook – then a quoted company but which is today back under family control – fought off a hostile takeover bid. The book is replete with tales of dirty tricks and larger-than-life characters. Author Bernard Ginns is long-time associate of the chairman. He paints Cook in a largely sympathetic light. But he also delves into parts of the affair from which Cook emerges badly. The book is a lively study into a specific chapter in UK industry development. It is a pity however that Ginns fails to do more to link the events of the 1990s more closely to the current day.

Ginni Rometty had a less than wonderful start. Her family had little money and her parents were unhappy. Their eventual split was messy. From this inauspicious beginning near Chicago, Rometty forged a career in engineering. She became the first woman in the long history of IBM to become chief executive, retiring from the computer and services giant in 2020. She has produced a stirring book about leadership. Especially rewarding is her take on encouraging young people to take on technical skills. She is good, too, on the deftness needed to handle business relationships. Among the many business books written by former CEOs, this one stands out.

Rachel Parsons and Caroline Haslett are two of the female engineers and technicians whose stories are told in this insightful book. Henrietta Heald has a sharp eye for detail. She relates how a group of women in the early 20th century tried to surmount the barriers stopping them from participating in engineering on the same terms as men. The efforts mirrored attempts on broader fronts to win political and social rights for women. Progress has been made. But the battles are far from won. Women embarking on a career in engineering and manufacturing often encounter obstacles bigger than for men. Heald’s histories remain relevant.

There is, says Donald Savoie, more to wild blueberries than meets the eye. He tells how John Bragg, an entrepreneur who in a small town in eastern Canada has created the world’s biggest harvester and processor of wild blueberries. Not to be confused with the farm-grown fruit, the wild variety is harder to grow, but tastier and more nutritious. One element behind the growth of Oxford Frozen Foods – and Bragg’s move into other sectors including cable television – is innovation in engineering and manufacturing. An example is his role in developing clever mechanisms for automating the picking of wild blueberries, a tough task given the rough terrain in which they grow. The book contains many clues on how entrepreneurs can prosper away from the limelight.

Who gains from technological advance? And how can we – ordinary people as well as governments – shape the course of events so the benefits are shared out fairly? These questions are at the core of this book by two eminent US economists. The all-encompassing volume traces the path of technology changes from innovations in farming in medieval times to current breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. As would be expected, the reader can learn about the development of the factory system and the rise of modern manufacturing. Technocrats in the new UK Labour government seeking levers for growth will mine the book for ideas.

Work is all around us. People do it for themselves and others. Usually they earn money. Sometimes they enjoy it. But what is it and how did it evolve? Historian Jan Lucassen has tackled these questions superbly in this wide-ranging and polished tome. It starts with the hunter-gatherers of 700,000 years ago and takes us to the digital age. We learn new facts about the industrial revolution of the late 18th century, put in the context of change over the millennia. Lucassen is a chronicler of social trends, not a technologist. The book has more to say about slavery than computers. But manufacturers should still enjoy it.

The UK’s leading role in the slave trade over three centuries to the 1800s is a shocking part of history. Less well studied has been slavery’s connections to the Industrial Revolution. This is the explosive acceleration in factory activity in the UK (and elsewhere) from the late 1700s. In dispassionate yet concise language, veteran historians Maxine Berg and Pat Hudson have traced the key linkages between the two sets of changes. They examine not just the direct interactions of slavery on parts of the economy such as shipping. They also describe a range of indirect connections between the slave trade and more scattered parts of UK commerce. Lines of credit devised to pay slave-ship captains could, for instance, be tweaked to bankroll a new factory. The historians do not postulate that the systemised traffic in humans was the single cause of a new production epoch. Slavery was however among a wider set of changes that helped to trigger its evolution. A book that links the two sequences so skilfully deserves to be widely read.

Britain was once the top country in the world for manufacturing -an area where now it an also-ran. How did the country fall so far and so fast? Anthony Warwick-Ching’s book makes a fair go of explaining what happened. While much of the story will be familiar to readers of similar books, the author digs out colourful stories to illuminate the run of events. At the heart of his book is Warwick-Ching’s view that governments and business leaders could have done more to arrest the slide. Not everyone will go along with his especially morbid view. Some readers will feel impelled occasionally to cry out “Come on, Anthony, it’s not as bad as this!” Nonetheless his doom-laden narrative makes for a useful take on the UK’s changing global role.