Internal Fire is a bronze winner of a 2022 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Award)

Internal Fire is the captivating history of the internal combustion engine and the creative individuals who brought it to life. From gunpowder to diesel, the development of these early powerhouses has been recorded from all sides. The influences of new technologies, patents, and obtainable fuels, as well as a growing understanding of the very nature of heat itself, are all explored. 

Internal Fire is not intended as a textbook, but as the well-researched and readable chronicle of a mechanical servant that has greatly influenced life in the 20th century and beyond.

You will find in this comprehensive book:

• Gunpowder and Steam
• Air Engines Thermodynamics: Carnot Charts a Course
• Patents: Origin and Influence
• Internal-Combustion Engines: 1791-1813
• Searching and Perfecting: 1820-1860
• The Genesis of an Industry
• Otto and Langen
• Otto's Four-Stroke CycleBrayton and His "Ready Motor"
• The Two-Stroke Cycle
• Gas and Gasoline Engines to 1900
• Oil Engines: An Interim Solution
• Rudolf Diesel: The End of the Beginning

This book is a reprint of an important publication that was first published by the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1989. It is an authoritative and entertaining account of the evolution of the very early internal combustion engine. 

Take a trip to a simpler era, when inventors crafted solutions that required neither chips nor circuit boards – just plain old American ingenuity. This collection features a variety of tools, presented with original photos and text. Can you identify these mystery items without looking at the descriptions?

All of the tools come from the pages of Farm Collector, a magazine for collectors of vintage farm equipment. In the monthly What Is It? feature, readers contribute photos of objects and others pitch in to identify the items (often sharing memories of personal experiences with long-forgotten tools). The popular articles have been running for 12 years, and this collection draws from that rich archive to present some of the most inventive of inventions and most curious of curiosities.