The Railway Mania and Its Aftermath
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Railway Mania and Its Aftermath
| Full title | The Railway Mania and Its Aftermath, 1845–1852 (being a sequel to Early British Railways) |
|---|---|
| Author | Henry Grote Lewin |
| Published | 1936 |
| Pages | 526 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Henry Grote Lewin’s exhaustive record of the British railway boom of 1845–1852 — the lines promoted set against the lines actually built, and the slow emergence, or absence, of government policy on promoters, fares, speeds, accidents and the telegraph. The boom every infrastructure-bubble analogy reaches for. |
Where I heard about it
- Tyler Cosgrove (@tylercosgrove) — on his list of 25 books he offered to send to Jared Kushner, October 2025.
About this edition
First published in 1936 as a sequel to Lewin’s Early British Railways, and reprinted in 1968 as an economic classic.
Connections
- The Railway King — the biography of the mania’s central promoter, also on this list.
- Bubble — the railway mania as the canonical infrastructure bubble.
- Infrastructure — what the capital was actually building, and the gap between promoted and completed mileage.
- Regulation — the book’s other subject: government’s improvised relationship with the promoters.
- Financial History — the section of the anti-library this sits in.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.