Skip to content
Description
By: Vaclav Smil
Tour the history of human invention—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts—in this history book from the New York Times-bestselling author of How the World Really Works.
A BILL GATES RECOMMENDED BOOK: “Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception.”
The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil, author of New York Times bestsellers How the World Really Works and Energy and Civilization. In Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm.
Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century.
Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.
Tour the history of human invention—and its attendant breakthroughs and busts—in this history book from the New York Times-bestselling author of How the World Really Works.
A BILL GATES RECOMMENDED BOOK: “Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception.”
The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil, author of New York Times bestsellers How the World Really Works and Energy and Civilization. In Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm.
Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century.
Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.
You may also like
熱銷中 Top Trending
Dog Man 14: Dog Man: Big Jim Believes: A Graphic Novel (Dog Man #14)
Sale priceHK$85.00
Regular priceHK$150.00
In stock
Dragon Masters #30 Vortex of the Chaos Dragon (Branches) (Tracey West)
Sale priceHK$55.00
Regular priceHK$69.00
In stock
Dragon Masters #29 (正版) Magic of the Wizard Dragon (Branches) (Tracey West)
Sale priceHK$48.00
Regular priceHK$69.00
In stock
Dragon Masters #28 (正版) Night of the Dream Dragon (Branches) (Tracey West)
Sale priceHK$48.00
Regular priceHK$69.00
In stock
Beast Quest Ice and Fire (15 Books) (Adam Blade)
Sale priceHK$346.00
Regular priceHK$1,257.90
In stock
Magic Tree House Fact Tracker Graphic Novel: Space
Sale priceFrom HK$70.00
Regular priceHK$110.00
In stock
National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of the World
Sale priceFrom HK$96.00
Regular priceHK$150.00
In stock