Delivery by Christmas 2026
REVOLUTIONS: How the powerboat changed the modern world.
REVOLUTIONS is a deeply reported, occasionally ridiculous narrative built from dozens of full-length interviews, rigorous research, and Steven Bull’s global travels while producing Water Ways TV, North America’s most-watched recreational boating show — with the podcast feed offering the extended conversations, and the
Chapter List + Podcast Episode Topics
Prologue
The Hidden Machine Steven J. Bull sets out on a global journey to test a bold hypothesis: that the powered boat was not a side note in modern history, but one of the defining machines of modern life.
PART I — The Machine That Shrunk the World
Chapter 1: Before Power — water as humanity’s first highway
Before engines, rivers, lakes, and oceans were already the great connectors of civilization, shaping trade, migration, empire, and everyday survival long before the modern road existed.
Chapter 2: Steam, Schedule, and the End of Distance — reliability changes everything
The arrival of steam power did more than speed up travel: it made movement predictable, turning water transport from a gamble with wind and current into a system the modern world could build around.
Chapter 3: Trade Becomes a Machine — goods, ports, and the industrial sea
Powered vessels helped transform global trade into an industrial process, feeding ports, factories, and supply chains that would redefine how nations produced, bought, and consumed.
Chapter 4: Migration at Scale — powered ships move people, culture, and ideas
As powered ships carried millions across oceans and inland routes, they did not just move passengers, but entire cultures, identities, ambitions, and social futures.
Chapter 5: War on the Water — how powered hulls transformed military power
Once boats became machines, navies became something new as well: faster, deadlier, more strategic instruments that reshaped warfare, empire, and the balance of power.
PART II — Speed and Spectacle
Chapter 6: Racing Into the Future — the original speed demons
Long before cars and planes dominated the public imagination, racing boats offered one of the earliest and most thrilling demonstrations of speed, innovation, and mechanical daring.
Chapter 7: Ole Evinrude and the Portable Revolution — how melting ice cream changed boating forever
With the outboard motor, boating stopped being the preserve of shipyards and the wealthy and became something families, anglers, and everyday adventurers could take with them.
Chapter 8: The Engine Wars — power, rivalry, branding, and performance obsession
As marine companies battled for speed, reliability, prestige, and loyalty, the boat engine became more than machinery: it became identity, status, and obsession.
PART III — Freedom for the Middle Class
Chapter 9: The Family Boat — leisure, fishing, camp life, and the cottage dream
In the twentieth century, the powered boat became a vessel not just for transport, but for family ritual, weekend escape, fishing tradition, and the dream of life at the lake.
Chapter 10: Fiberglass, Aluminum, and the Factory Age — mass production reshapes boating
New materials and factory methods made boats cheaper, lighter, more standardized, and more widely available, helping turn boating from a niche pastime into a mass-market lifestyle.
Chapter 11: Trailered Freedom — the boat leaves the marina and enters the driveway
Once boats could be hitched to the family vehicle, they became far more personal and mobile, allowing owners to chase water wherever they could find it.
Chapter 12: Lake Life, Waterskiing, and the Summer Dream — lifestyle and identity
From ski boats to cottage runabouts, powered boating became woven into the cultural fantasy of summer itself: freedom, performance, leisure, and belonging.
PART IV — The Boats We Still Need
Chapter 13: Working Water — the boats behind daily life
Before the next marine revolution arrives, one old truth remains: even in an age of roads, aircraft, algorithms, and automation, boats are still essential to daily life — moving people, supplying remote communities, protecting harbours, servicing ports, and doing work that no other machine does quite the same way.
Chapter 14: Electric Wake — electrification, foils, and the next marine revolution
Now the boat is changing again, as electric propulsion, smarter systems, hydrofoils, and new expectations begin to redefine what powered movement on water can become.
EPILOGUE: The Boat That Changed My Life
Bull returns to the personal, reflecting on why boats are never just machines, but memory, freedom, identity, and possibility.
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