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This work features in-depth critical essays on important men and women inventors of all time, from around the world. Plus, free online access to the full content of this remarkable reference set is available. The printed reference includes: four volumes, including 2,048 pages; 409 essays and 409 sidebars; hundreds of photos, illustrations and graphs; and, appendixes, indexes and resource listings. Features of the online subscription include: fully supported; complimentary online access; unlimite...

"The cotton gin animates the American imagination in unique ways. It evokes no images of antique machinery or fluffy fiber but rather scenes of victimized slaves and battlefield dead. It provokes the suspicion that had Eli Whitney never invented the gin, United States history would have been somehow different. Yet cotton gins existed for centuries before Whitney invented his gin in 1794. Nineteenth-century scholars overlooked them as well as gins made by southern-and northern-mechanics, in order...

Foreword by Admiral Lord West Whilst living in Liverpool, Britain's second most heavily bombed city during World War II, the author experienced at first-hand the terrible effects of the war on the civilian population and when studying at Cambridge he witnessed the American heavy bombers and their fighter escorts flying to attack targets in Germany and occupied Europe. Serving as an engineering officer in the Royal Navy in HMS Sheffield provided first-hand realisation of the importance of engin...

From historical figures such as Marie Curie to contemporaries such as Steve Jobs, a handful of innovators have changed the world. What made them so spectacularly inventive? Melissa A. Schilling, one of the world's leading experts on innovation, looks at the lives of seven creative geniuses--Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Elon Musk, Dean Kamen, Nicola Tesla, Curie, and Jobs--to identify the traits and quirks that led them to become breakthrough innovators. Though all innovators possess incr...

The authoritative edition of Franklin's autobiography, now with a new introduction by eminent Franklin scholar Edmund S. Morgan Translated into a dozen languages, printed in hundreds of editions, and read by millions of people, Franklin's autobiography has had an influence perhaps unequaled by any other book by an American writer. Written ostensibly as a letter to his son William, the autobiography offers Franklin's reflections on philosophy and religion, politics, war, education, material succe...

The Great American Hall of Wonders is a vividly illustrated survey of the American ingenuity that energised all aspects of 19th-century society, from the painting of landscapes and scenes of everyday life, to the planning of scientific expeditions and the development of new mechanical devices. It focuses on six iconic objects that inspired the American imagination: the buffalo, the giant sequoia, and Niagara Falls (symbolising vast natural bounty), and the gun, the railroad, and the clock (repre...

Who Made That? uncovers the fascinating true stories behind the inventions and items that the world would be unimaginable without! From the computer to the coat hanger, the world is simply unimaginable without certain items. Stop taking all that you enjoy for granted, step behind the curtain of boring, everyday existence, and discover a vibrant realm filled with genius and illumination. Who Made That? brings together history's very best tales of innovation, providing endless inspiration to thos...

Innovation is an ancient art, may be as old as 500,000 years, but managing innovation is a relatively young management technique, only a few decades old, and has received much less attention than other aspects of innovation such as creativity, entrepreneurship or venturing. This book is not about providing a series of recipes on innovation management or a collection of case stories on how to do innovation or not. The few examples given are well known innovations from (Shell) history and all of t...

Did you know that the machine used to drill tunnels for the first underground railway in England was invented by a South African, or that the first computers in South Africa were women calculators working at the Royal Observatory in Cape Town? Everyone knows that the Kreepy Krawly, Pratley's Putty, Dolos, and CATscanner were invented in South Africa, but what about the Sheffel Bogie, Oil of Olay, Q20, Policansky fishing reels, Lodox low-dose X-ray machine, and Waste Shark? This authoritative vol...