His creations laid the structural groundwork for the modern industrial world, and almost every one of them ended in financial ruin, engineering disaster, or literal explosion. Isambard Kingdom Brunel's own obituary captured the paradox: "the right man for the nation, but unfortunately not the right man for the shareholders." In a 2002 BBC poll of the greatest Britons, only Churchill ranked above him.

This episode follows the chaos that forged him: a father who negotiated his way out of debtors' prison by threatening to work for the Tsar, an apprenticeship in precision clockmaking, and the Thames Tunnel where a shipworm-inspired shield held back an open sewer until the river broke through and drowned six men. From his recovery bed came the Clifton Bridge; from his ambition came the Great Western Railway, three revolutionary ships, the swallo ...