{"product_id":"from-insight-to-innovation-david-p-billington-9780262044301","title":"From Insight to Innovation: Engineering Ideas That Transformed America in the Twentieth Century","description":"\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\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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e David P. Billington\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0262044307\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780262044301\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e MIT Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/17\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.50lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.60h x 7.30w x 1.40d","brand":"David P. Billington","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43994517635327,"sku":"9780262044301","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_9dea65bc-d3a7-4189-9f6a-e8d2bd0a80f1.jpg?v=1683330625","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/from-insight-to-innovation-david-p-billington-9780262044301","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}