1-150-265 - Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

Cutlery-making, c1750s. Plate taken from volume II of Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonne de Science, des Arts et des Metiers, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert and published in 14 volumes between 1751 and 1765. Diderot and d'Alembert's Le Grand Encyclopedie was more than a summary of all contemporary knowledge, it served as a manifesto for a new way of looking at the world by depicting and describing many of the instruments and processes which transformed the world during the Industrial Revolution.