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Why was the wheel, that most basic of inventions,
never invented in the New World? Why did it take Europe
seven hundred years from the onslaught of the stirrup-using
Mongol horsemen to reinvent the stirrup? The story of man's
technological progress from the hand-axe to the hydrogen
bomb is full of intriguing questions like these -- full,
too, of examples of the very simple ideas that anyone could
have had, but only one person did have.
Under Edward de Bono's editorial guidance,
this fully illustrated history describes all the most important
inventions: how they came about, who made them, and what
effects they had. It is the story not of technology, but
of individual inventions and, above all, of individual inventors.
Some inventions are seen as resulting from
a flash of insight, like the twitching frogs' legs that
gave Volta the idea of the electric battery; others evolved,
step by step, from the anonymous efforts of a team. Sometimes
(as in the case of television) there was a false start just
successful enough to encourage development along a different
path. Edison had an organized, well-equipped laboratory;
Cockerell worked out the principles of the hovercraft on
the kitchen table with a few empty tins and the blower of
a vacuum cleaner. Some inventions had a fundamental effect
on human history (movable type, gunpowder), others merely
added their quota to life's amenities (instant coffee, the
ballpoint pen, the brassiere).
Eighty contributors, all experts in their
fields of study, have written more than 360 articles, which
are divided into five main fields of human interest and
activity. The result is not only an invaluable source of
reference, but an absorbing study of the ingenious mind
of man.
Edward de Bono has been Assistant Director
of Research in the Department of Investigative Medicine,
University of Cambridge, since 1963. He is author of Lateral
Thinking and many other books on the creative process.
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