{"product_id":"from-insight-to-innovation-engineering-ideas-that-transformed-america-in-the-twentieth-century-9780262044301","title":"From Insight to Innovation: Engineering Ideas That Transformed America in the Twentieth Century","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): David P. Billington\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: MIT Press\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: MIT Press\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: History\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe engineering ideas behind key twentieth-century technical innovations, from great dams and highways to the jet engine, the transistor, the microchip, and the computer.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTechnology is essential to modern life, yet few of us are technology-literate enough to know much about the engineering that underpins it. In this book, David P. Billington, Jr., offers accessible accounts of the key twentieth-century engineering innovations that brought us into the twenty-first century. Billington examines a series of engineering advances--from Hoover Dam and jet engines to the transistor, the microchip, the computer, and the internet--and explains how they came about and how they work.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEach of these innovations tells a unique story. The great dams of the New Deal brought huge rivers under control, and a national highway system interconnected the nation, as did jet air travel. The transistor and the microchip originated in the private sector and found a mass market after early government support. The computer and the internet began as government projects and found a mass market later in the private sector. Billington finds that engineers with unconventional insights could succeed in a bureaucratic age; what mattered were independent vision and a society that welcomed innovation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book completes the story of American engineering begun with the earlier volumes \u003ci\u003eThe Innovators\u003c\/i\u003e (by the author's father) and \u003ci\u003ePower, Speed, and Form\u003c\/i\u003e (by the author and his father).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":45083847852183,"sku":"9780262044301","price":2170.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780262044301.webp?v=1767636180","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/from-insight-to-innovation-engineering-ideas-that-transformed-america-in-the-twentieth-century-9780262044301","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}