Jonathan Glancey is a lifelong steam enthusiast who has oiled, fired and driven, as well as watched and listened to, steam locomotives around the world. In Giants of Steam, he turns his enthusiastic and knowledgeable attention to the thrilling story of the last, and greatest, generation of steam railway locomotives in regular main line service. Designed and built chiefly by the railways and workshops of Britain, France, Germany and the United States, these powerful and beautifully designed machines would take steam locomotive technology to new heights set against a backdrop of the political upheavals and military conflicts of the mid twentieth century.