Monturiol’s Dream by Matthew Stewart, Profile, £15.99, ISBN 1861974701 Reviewed by Jon Copley
BARCELONA’S waterfront boasts an object whose stylish lines look right at home with the city’s sculptures. But it is a piece of history, not art, and engineering history at that: a replica of the world’s first proper submarine, the Ictineo II.
And the story gets stranger. Its inventor, Narcis Monturiol, was a utopian communist who believed submarines could be tools for social change. While others worked on submarines’ military potential, Monturiol wanted to lay transatlantic telegraph lines, convey passengers safely beneath the tempests, prospect the deeps –…
