Machines have always gone hand-in-hand with the cultural development of mankind throughout time. A book on the history of machines is a specific way of bringing light to human events as a whole, highlighting significant milestones in the progress of knowledge from a complementary perspective in a general historical overview. This book is the result of common efforts and interests by several scholars, teachers, and students on subjects connected with the theory of machines and mechanisms. In fact, this book has a teaching aim in addition to a general historical view that focuses more on the achievements of "homo faber" than on those of "homo sapiens," as the proposed history survey has been developed with an engineering approach. The brevity of the text, combined with the authors' expertise, contributes to its effectiveness.