Stirling myth -- and Stirling reality -- Réflexions sur le cicle de Carnot -- What Carnot efficiency? -- Equivalence conditions for volume variations -- The optimum vs optimization -- Design correlations -- heat transfer -- A question of adiabaticity -- More adiabaticity -- Dynamic similarity -- Intrinsic similarity -- Getting started -- Fasttrack gas path design -- Flexiscale -- Rescale -- Less steam, more traction -- Stirling engine design without the hot air -- Heat transfer correlations -- from the horse's mouth -- Wire mesh regenerator -- back-of-envelope sums -- Son of Schmidt -- H2 vs He vs air -- The hot-air engine -- Ultimate Lagrange formulation -- Appendix A-1: The reciprocating carnot cycle -- Appendix A-2: Determination of V2 and V4 -- polytropic processes -- Appendix A-3: Design charts -- nomograms -- Appendix A-4: Kinematics of lever-crank drive.