Forgotten: How One Man Unlocked the Modern World - Hardcover

Dávila, Jaime

Hardcover

ISBN 13: 9798998953705

Publisher: Quinto Malo Books, 2025

Synopsis

What if humanity's most important invention wasn't the steam engine or the printing press, but a machine that you've never heard of, built by a man that history forgot?

Eight billion people owe their lives to a man you've never heard of. In Forgotten, Jaime Dávila uncovers the astonishing true story of Cornelis Corneliszoon, a 16th-century Dutch tinkerer whose simple invention - the wind-powered sawmill - unleashed a chain reaction that built the modern world. Faster ships. Global trade. Stock markets. The Industrial Revolution. None of this would have happened without this single millwright's practical innovation.

A rigorous, revelatory, and unflinchingly subversive challenge to our understanding of how the modern world was built, and a long-overdue correction of an historical injustice.

About this title

About the Author

Jaime Dávila is a lifelong student of history, fascinated by the ways technological, economic, artistic, and political ideas have shaped human destiny. He counts among his influences Dava Sobel, Will and Ariel Durant, Sir Kenneth Clark, Jared Diamond, and Yuval Harari, writers whose sweeping syntheses inspired him to attempt his own. After a career as a business executive, Dávila turned his attention to historical turning points he had studied for years and came to believe were too often neglected. This is his first book. Born in Mexico, he now lives in Connecticut, United States, and in Mexico City.

Edition details

• Publisher: Quinto Malo Books
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798998953705
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 238