Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse
David E. Brown, Lester C. Thurow (Foreword by), James BurkeBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Inventing Modern America profiles thirty-five inventors who exemplify the rich technological creativity of the United States over the past century. The range of their contributions is broad. They have helped transform our homes, our healthcare, our work, our environment, and the way we travel and communicate.The inventors profiled include such well-known figures as George Washington Carver, Henry Ford, and Steve Wozniak, as well as unsung technological pioneers such as Stephanie Kwolek, inventor of Kevlar, and Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the first implantable cardiac pacemaker.Inventing Modern America is designed to create excitement about invention through the personal stories of these American scientists, technologists, and researchers.
It is accessible enough to engage high school students yet wide-ranging and interesting enough to appeal to anyone who has ever wondered where microwave ovens and traffic lights come from.The book was developed by the Lemelson-MIT Program for Invention and Innovation, whose mission is to inspire a new generation of American scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs.
Synopsis
Lively accounts of thirty-five American inventors who helped shape the modern world.
Publishers Weekly
Ole Evinrude, designer of the outboard boat motor; Stephanie Kwolek, creator of Kevlar; and Henry Ford, architect of the moving assembly line are just a few of the American inventors profiled in Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse by freelance writer and editor David E. Brown. Along with contributors Lester C. Thurow and James Burke, Brown simplifies technical data and uses an enthusiastic, almost proselytizing tone: "We can all be inventors, just like the ones in this book. They show us the way." These words may restrict the primary audience for this volume to those under legal voting age, but full color photographs, diagrams and intriguing tidbits like how a "tiny mistake led to the invention of the modern pacemaker" make this a good book for most to browse. ( Dec.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.