Daniel Waterhouse is the college roommate of Isaac Newton and gets involved in the formation of the Royal Society. He is one of our main characters and shows the inner workings of the English scientific and political process. Eliza is a young Qwghlm woman that is captured and sold into slavery. Later she is freed and uses her scientific knowledge, financial knowledge and sex appeal to rise high in European political circles. Eliza show the continental scientific and political changes. Jack Shaftoe is a pirate and counterfeiter who rescued Eliza, severely disappoints her and spends the rest of his life trying to win her love back. While Daniel and Eliza generally stay in the European arena, Jack is free to move around the world and show us snippets of life from other continents.
Together these three main characters end up on the ground floor of the historical changes in technology and political power in the late 1600s. And the novel culminates with the epic battle between Newton and Leibniz for the soul (and creation rights) of calculus. In the end they both win (Newton is seen as the creator of calculus, but current techniques use Leibniz’s mathematics more).
The Baroque Cycle, featuring a cast of hundreds, follows (for the most part) the turbulence of the time with the huge political changes in England and continental Europe and the technology changes which start affecting the political process more and more (the steam engine plays a prominent part). It’s an amazing series of books that lay bare the similarities between the late 1600s and the present day world. As with all Stephenson books, expect a lot of digressions on topics including money, power and political process.