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Print Resources
Check out these books for more perspectives on the innovations ever-pushing our world in fresh and exciting directions.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.
CREATIVITY: FLOW AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DISCOVERY AND INVENTION.
New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Csikszentmihalyi describes his book as "an effort to make
more understandable the mysterious process by which
men and women come up with new ideas and new things."
Gould, Stephen Jay.
WONDERFUL LIFE: THE BURGESS
SHALE AND THE NATURE OF HISTORY.
New York: W.W.
Norton, 1989.
Gould delves into "the most precious and deep of all fossil
Localities" and the work of paleobiologists.
Hargadon, Andrew, and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt.
HOW BREAKTHROUGHS HAPPEN: THE SURPRISING TRUTH
ABOUT HOW COMPANIES INNOVATE.
Massachusetts:
Harvard Business School Press, 2003.
The authors argue that innovations are often the result of
group efforts that improve on existing technologies.
Hecht, Jeff.
CITY OF LIGHT: THE STORY OF FIBER OPTICS.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Hecht traces the origins of fiber optics and discusses its
potential impact on the communications industry.
Hughes, Thomas P.
THE AMERICAN GENESIS: A CENTURY OF INVENTION AND TECHNOLOGICAL
ENTHUSIASM 1870-1970.
New York: Viking, 1989.
Hughes's sociological study analyzes the work of independent
inventors like Edison and the Wrights, describing
the systems that emerged from their innovations.
Kidder, Tracy.
THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE.
New York: Little, Brown, 1981.
Kidder's THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE endures as a
fascinating account of how computers have changed our
lives.
Pacey, Arnold.
THE MAZE OF INGENUITY: IDEAS AND
IDEALISM IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY.
New
York: Holmes & Meier, 1975.
Pacey explores interactions between society and technology
over a period of 1000 years, arguing for more humane
technological development in the future.
Petroski, Henry.
TO ENGINEER IS HUMAN: THE ROLE OF
FAILURE IN SUCCESSFUL DESIGN.
New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1985.
Petroski shows that human error is a factor in the
most remarkable engineering feats and often precedes
their ultimate successes.
Rhodes, Richard (Editor).
VISIONS OF TECHNOLOGY: A
CENTURY OF VITAL DEBATE ABOUT MACHINES, SYSTEMS, AND THE HUMAN WORLD.
New York: Simon & Shuster,
1999.
A work of cultural history, this anthology shows how a
wide variety of inventors and journalists viewed the possibilities
and dangers of future technological development.
Tenner, Edward.
WHY THINGS BITE BACK: TECHNOLOGY AND THE REVENGE OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.
New York: Knopf, 1996.
Tenner examines some of the downsides of innovation,
tracing the roots of solutions that have turned into real
problems.
Tzu, Sun.
THE ART OF WAR.
Edited by James Clavell.
New York: Delacorte Press, 1983.
Written more than 2,500 years ago, this book is a popular
source of ideas and strategies for entrepreneurs and innovators.
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