Customer Reviews

Inventing the 20th Century: 100 Inventions That Shaped the World

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I got this as a gift for a friend who is an Engineer and holds many patents of his own. He loves this kind of stuff and thought this was a fantastically fun, interesting and informative book!

This is one of those rare books which is as entertaining as it is informative. Van Dulken selects and discusses "100 inventions that shaped the world", organizing his material within ten chapters to correspond with the ten decades of the 20th century:

1900-1910 (e.g. aeroplane, air conditioning, and the vacuum cleaner)

1910-1919 (e.g. Formica®, neon lighting, and the self-service supermarket

1920-1929 (e.g. the bread slicing machine, power steering, and television

1930-1939 (e.g. the jet engine, the photocopier, and radar

1940-1949 (e.g. the ballpoint pen, the computer, and the transistor

1950-1959 (e.g. the geodesic dome, the microchip, and Velcro® fasteners)

1960-1969 (e.g. implantable pacemaker, the mouse, and the Workmate® workbench) 1970-1979 (e.g. the artificial heart, Post-it® notes, and the smart card)

1980-1989 (e.g. cellular phones, genetic fingerprinting, and the video game)

1990-1999 (e.g. cloning animals, fuel cells, and programmable materials)

Van Dulken discusses ten different inventions in each of the ten chapters, providing detailed descriptions as well as explanations of the historical context in which each was devised and by whom. In the Introduction by Andrew Phillips, the reader is told that the inventions highlighted in this book "have benefitted people of virtually every nation. Some have helped combat the despair of disease, poverty, excessive (even unendurable) labour. Other inventions -- though less illustrated by this book --have contributed to the ravages of war. What comes forth so often, however, from the examples described here is the individuality and initiative which characterizes so many inventors who helped change the world between 1900 and 1999." Quite true. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Mokyr's The Lever of Riches and Novak's The Fire of Invention.

I've enjoyed this book over the years, both personally and professionally. It's a great book for students who come to the library to do historic patent and invention projects.

The author, Stephen Van Dulken, has republished without reference or acknowledgment or prior approval of our substantial research regarding the origins and history of tiddlywinks performed in many prior years by me and Fred Shapiro. He has used our research without any reference or attribution. Our research has been published, with copyrights, on tiddlywinks.org since 1997, and in printed materials before then, also copyrighted, Steve Van Dulken has inappropriately used our copyrighted research in this book without approval or attribution. His use of these materials in this book is not approved or accepted and is in violation of our copyrighted materials.

It is for certain that the world has taken gigantic leaps and bounds during the past one hundred years, making up what we know as the 20th century. Author Stephen Van Dulken successfully summarizes the major historical events and technological breakthroughs, starting with the year 1900 and leading up to 1999, in his enlightening book Inventing the 20th Century. It is an easy, fast, read keeping the reader continuously amused with numerous ground-breaking discoveries and the stories behind them.

Dubbing the 20th century as the age of `energy,' Van Dulken crafts a highly entertaining text, giving us a brief glimpse of 100 influential inventions categorized by decade. During this century, we journeyed into space with invention of the jet engine, split an atom, created the transistor radio, cloned a sheep, and came up with the ideas of wind and solar energy.

Each invention is introduced with a one page description of the how the idea came about, describing the patent process, as well as, a facing page of very interesting diagrams. The inventions are prefaced by a two page, stirring, historical, summary of the decade from around the world. Unfortunately, the majority of the history and inventions mentioned in the book are primarily focused in North America and Europe. Understandably, as the international super-powers, resources were more prevalent, as Phillips acknowledges in the introduction. However, it would be nice to see some inventions coming from less powerful areas of the world.

As a whole,Van Dulken does a suburb job of giving the reader a panoramic view of the 20th century, re-introducing us to the past 100 years with an emphasis on the creative ideas people have developed. From the invention of the television to the Post-it note, each has impacted the world greatly. Van Dulken has re-invented our history through his book, allowing the reader to visualize how certain innovative ideas have come into existence, some changing throughout the years while others remaining static. Ultimately, we are challenged to meditate on technology and the exciting future before us. Where will we be after the next 100 years? We will just have to wait for Van Dulken's next fascinating book.

The subtitle to Van Dulken's "Inventing the 20th Century" is "100 inventions that shaped the world." True, the airplane, jet engine, automatic transmission, and microchip, among others, certainly have changed the world. But I find it hard to accept that Silly Putty and the Slinky fall into that category. His 100 inventions include many other inventions of questionable worth and pedigree, including several British ones that few Americans would recognize. In many instances the inventions cited by patents were not the ones that turned into the products that we are now familiar with, and his discriptions were often difficult to follow, in part because the auther writes more like a patent attorney than a historian or storyteller. The stories of many of the most significant inventions were already well known to me ---- their stories have been better told in other books, articles or documentaries that I've seen or read over the years. The more obscure inventions were not presented in any more exciting manner. The fault may have been in the author being limited by the format of one or two pages of narrative for each invention. The overall effect was that of a bland, incomplete and unsatisfying meal. You're left feeling hungry but without a desire to consume any more.