If you are interested in the history of precision engineering. I can highly recommend the book titled "The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World".[1]
It does into detail on how precision manufacturing was created from the beginnings of the industrial revolution until today. The book has some funny anocdotes from history, and despite being quite long i found it easy to read.
If you're going to go down such a rabbit hole, you'll be well served by checking out the ostensible bible on the subject as well, "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" by Moore.
This book astounds me. The depths they went to achieve millionth of inch accuracy was crazy. That book is quite expensive and rare it seems. I have a copy but it was 100$+ dollars.
There are a couple guys on YouTube doing very nice demonstrations of high-accuracy operations. One is Ox Tool Company. Interesting grinding operations etc.
Really smart stuff. These machinists of the 1930 1940 1950s were just as clever as John Carmack or whoever your modern nerd heroes are.
It does into detail on how precision manufacturing was created from the beginnings of the industrial revolution until today. The book has some funny anocdotes from history, and despite being quite long i found it easy to read.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35068671-the-perfectioni...