World Innovation

The story of human civilization can be read most deeply in the materials we have found or created, used or abused. They have dictated how we build, eat, communicate, wage war, create art, travel, and worship. Some, such as stone, iron, and bronze, lend their names to the ages. Others, such as gold, silver, and diamond, contributed to the rise and fall of great empires.

In this volume, Steven Johnson explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life (refrigeration, clocks, and eyeglass lenses, to name a few) from their creation by hobbyists, amateurs, and entrepreneurs to their unintended historical consequences. Filled with surprising stories of accidental genius and brilliant mistakes - from the French publisher who invented the phonograph before Edison but forgot to include playback, to the Hollywood movie star who helped invent the technology behind Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

In The World Is Your Office, Harvard Business School professor Prithwiraj Choudhury, who has been studying this phenomenon for over a decade, takes listeners inside the trailblazing companies that are going all-in on work-from-anywhere (WFA) policies. From startups and nonprofits to government agencies and large corporations, Choudhury's research shows why and how these organizations are benefiting.

Henry J. Kaiser's significance in American industry cannot be overstated. As a visionary entrepreneur, he transformed sectors that are integral to the nation's infrastructure and well-being. His innovative approaches to constructing massive infrastructure projects, such as the Hoover Dam, set new standards in engineering and project management. During World War II, his shipyards produced Liberty ships at an unprecedented rate, demonstrating his capacity to enhance productivity and efficiency on a grand scale. Kaiser's establishment of Kaiser Permanente introduced a new model of healthcare ...

Published in more than two dozen countries, How to Change the World has become a bible for the field of social entrepreneurship. It tells the stories of people building innovative and pattern-changing solutions to social and economic problems.

In 1714, England's Parliament offered a huge reward to anyone whose method of measuring longitude could be proven successful. The scientific establishment--from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton--had mapped the heavens in its certainty of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had been able to do on land. And the race was on....

Simply Electrifying: The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael Faraday, Samuel F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, Elon Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time the complete, thrilling, and often dangerous story of electricity's historic discovery, development, and worldwide application.

Great leaders of innovation know that creativity is not enough. They succeed not only on the basis of their ideas, but because they have the vision, reputation, and networks to win the backing needed to commercialize them. It turns out that this quality - called "innovation capital" - is measurably more important for innovation than just being creative. The authors have spent decades studying how people get great ideas (the subject of The Innovator's DNA) and how people test and develop those ideas (explored in The Innovator's Method).

Leading in a Non-Linear World leads listeners through a groundbreaking set of science-based strategies to help them face rising demand, uncertainty and change posed by disruptive technologies and seismic shifts in globalization. The book shows how our mindset, more than our knowledge and expertise, has the potential to be our greatest asset in facing the future. Jean Gomes reviews the latest brain research revealing that our mindset is the interplay of feeling, thinking, and seeing, and how we can build it to significantly increase our wellbeing and performance.

Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools, people, and ideas that had far-reaching consequences for all of us. From the plough to artificial intelligence, from Gillette's disposable razor to IKEA's Billy bookcase, best-selling author and Financial Times columnist Tim Harford recounts each invention's own curious, surprising, and memorable story.

Brilliant offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history - from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. Jane Brox plumbs the class implications of light - who had it, who didn't - through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. Brillant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and - only a few years before it becomes illegal to sell most incandescent light bulbs in the United States - timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light.

For millennia, humanity's greatest leaps forward have followed a hidden rhythm, a pattern woven into the very fabric of our progress. But what if this pattern could be deciphered, understood, and even harnessed? This book unveils the startling truth: the transformative adoption of new technologies, ideas, and behaviors isn't random—it's a repeating cycle spanning centuries, perhaps even eons. Based on an exhaustive analysis of 1,500 pivotal moments in history, this isn't just a glimpse into our past; it's a roadmap to our future. Will we unlock the potential of solar power, AI, and other ...

In August 1968 NASA made a bold decision: In just 16 weeks, the United States would launch humankind's first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken.

In How the World Sees You, author and personal branding expert Sally Hogshead applies the principles of fascination triggers to understanding "personality brands"—how individuals use different triggers to influence, persuade, and captivate others. You already know how you see yourself and the world. But how does the world see you? If you want to be heard and remembered, if you want people to take action on your ideas and opinions, then you need to get the full picture.

“As Albert Einstein almost certainly never said, everyone is a genius—but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” So begins Katie Spalding’s spunky takedown of the Western canon, and how genius may not be as irrefutably great as we commonly understand. While most of us may never become Einstein, it may surprise you to learn that there’s probably a bunch of stuff you can do that Einstein couldn’t. And, as Spalding shows, the famous prodigies she explores here were quite odd by any definition.

The New York Times best-selling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.

For fans of Sapiens and The Dawn of Everything, a groundbreaking exploration of gendered oppression—its origins, its histories, our attempts to understand it, and our efforts to combat it.

Award-winning author William Rosen tells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it: the steam engine.

In The Geography of Genius, acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. He explores the history of places, like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley, to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity.

The previously classified story of the eccentric researchers who invented cutting-edge underwater science to lead the Allies to D-Day victory.