{"product_id":"2940170747962","title":"The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention","description":"If all measures of human advancement in the last hundred centuries were plotted on a graph, they would show an almost perfectly flat line-until the eighteenth century, when the Industrial Revolution would cause the line to shoot straight up, beginning an almost uninterrupted march of progress.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Most Powerful Idea in the World\u003c\/i\u003e, William Rosen tells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it-the steam engine. In the process he tackles the question that has obsessed historians ever since: What made eighteenth-century Britain such fertile soil for inventors? Rosen's answer focuses on a simple notion that had become enshrined in British law the century before: that people had the right to own and profit from their ideas.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe result was a period of frantic innovation revolving particularly around the promise of steam power. Rosen traces the steam engine's history from its early days as a clumsy but sturdy machine, to its coming-of-age driving the wheels of mills and factories, to its maturity as a transporter for people and freight by rail and by sea. Along the way we enter the minds of such inventors as Thomas Newcomen and James Watt; scientists, including Robert Boyle and Joseph Black; and philosophers John Locke and Adam Smith-all of whose insights, tenacity, and ideas transformed first a nation and then the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRosen is a masterly storyteller with a keen eye for the \"aha!\" moments of invention and a gift for clear and entertaining explanations of science. \u003ci\u003eThe Most Powerful Idea in the World\u003c\/i\u003e will appeal to anyone who is fascinated with history, science, and the hows and whys of innovation itself.","brand":"Tantor Audio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47123289538800,"sku":"2940170747962","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940170747962_p0.jpg?v=1763716124","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940170747962","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}