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Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse has won the 2002 "Award for Distinguished Literary Contribution Furthering Engineering Professionalism" from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the 2002 Independent Publishers Book Award (IPPY) for "Best Science Book." A paperback issue of the book has been released and will be available in bookstores in April 2003. The book will retail at $19.95. |
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Videos from Book Launch
MITWORLD, Events Taped at MIT LEMELSON FOUNDATION Video Footage of Book Launch |
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Book Reviews
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: Fromt he 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 the 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. |
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KIRKUS REVIEWS
A marvelous history of American invention, profiling George Washington Carver (industrial uses of agricultural products) and including six women: Sally Fox (naturally colored cotton), Marie-Claire KIng (advances in breast cancer), Stephanie Kwolek (Kevlar), and logician Erna Schneider Hoover (this computerized telephone switching system) among them. Men include Raymond Damadian (the MRI scammer), Wilson Greatbatch (implantable cardiac pacemaker), Henry Ford (the assembly line), Douglas Englebart (computer mouse), Buckminster Fuller (geodesic dome), Raymond Kurzweil (an optical reading machine for the blind), Percy Spencer (microwave oven), and Steve Wozniak (personal computer). Thirty-five innovators are profiled. Would you believe Al Gross invented the walkie-talkie in 1937, Garrett Morgan the traffic light in 1923, and Ole Evinrude the outboard boat motor in 1911? Great stuff; inspiring indeed. |
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Book Review Links
NEW SCIENTIST.COM It is a well-written, lavishly illustrated success, and a cheerful one at that... read more ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE Portraits of 35 inventors and the discoveries that have changed modern life... read more HOMEWORKSPOT.COM Learn about some of the American inventors who have helped create our modern way of life... read more AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR ENGINEERING EDUCATION Surprising stories of the creation of everyday objects, from Kevlar and the personal computer to the pacemaker... read more |
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Doug Engelbart
Thomas Fogarty
Ashok Gadgil
Stephanie Kwolek
Paul MacCready
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