# The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester

7 Hacker News commenters recommended The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as an accessible history of how precision engineering developed and how it shaped modern manufacturing. One critic found it spends too long on irrelevant detail.

## What people warn about

- Spends time on irrelevant detail (1 comments): "Felt that it spent a lot of time waffling about irrelevant detail" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49999855))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dawn-of-everything.md): 23 recommend
- [Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cadillac-desert.md): 18 recommend
- [The Box by Marc Levinson](https://hackerapproved.com/p/box.md): 16 recommend
- [Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sapiens.md): 13 recommend
- [Chip War by Chris Miller](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chip-war.md): 13 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062652559?tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Bookshop.org](https://bookshop.org/a/130825/9780062652553) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester", https://hackerapproved.com/p/perfectionists-how-precision-engineers-created-the-modern-world/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).