Consoled by glory, and sustained by pride.
I finished it. Finally. It took me nearly a month, but I did read all of They Made America.
It was actually a very good book. It’s a collection of essays, ranging in length from one page to 20 or so, about various innovators who worked within a (less and less) uniquely American system to create such wonders as flight, MRI technology and plastic. The author makes an important distinction between inventors and innovators; for example, Robert Fulton didn’t invent the steamboat, but he was the first person to adapt the advances of others together into a form of boat that was reliable, fast and economical enough to form the basis of a wide-spanning transportation service that really opened up the country for the first time. Similarly, Henry Ford didn’t invent the car, nor the assembly line: he simply pushed the assembly line concept to its limits in order to make a car that anybody, not just the super-rich, could afford. The author does not hold a lot of love for Bill Gates, though:
“But is [Gates] an anti-innovator? He has never invented any important, original software; hundreds of small innovative companies have dies in Microsoft’s bearhug; and Microsoft has never been first to market with any major innovation.”
The book also paints some very moving pictures of the real impact that these people had on the world and society. I was choked up reading about P T Farnsworth sitting at home watching the moon landings on TV; despite all of the tribulations he had to go through to make his invention (television) available to the public, he said that one moment made it all worthwhile. The story of Samuel Insull was also very moving — in 1900 electricity was limited to just the richer areas of majors cities, and businesses who could afford to build their own generators. Insull built a system which was able to deliver cheap energy to all of Chicago, and his system soon took over the world. It’s amazing to think that in less than 100 years, electricity went from being a toy for the rich to being so integral to our lives.
I’m now reading Zelazny’s A Dark Traveling, which is only 150 pages, with large type and lots of illustrations. It’s very refreshing.
I think you should write a mass email to everyone at work so they’ll know what they are missing! I always enjoy reading your posts!