Fifty Innovations That Changed the World

Through the fascinating stories of fifty ideas and inventions, the author of The Undercover Economist explains in this new book how innovation can change our lives and alter the complex global economic system.

There are innovations, ideas, and inventions that make it possible to cure cancer. Others allow us to reach our vacation destinations much faster. They are fun. They make money. And, of course, inventions succeed because they solve a problem that someone, somewhere, wants to solve. The plow, for example, succeeded because it helped farmers produce more food with less effort.

However, inventions shape our lives in unpredictable ways, and while they solve a problem for someone, they often create a problem for someone else. Why did the barcode change the balance of power in the food industry? Why did the gramophone increase economic inequality? And how did barbed wire forge the future of the United States? Innovations also affect a complex network of economic connections. Sometimes they complicate our lives, other times they break old limits, and occasionally they create completely new patterns. Why, for example, did the birth control pill increase the number of women in medical and law schools?

With the talent that has made him the most celebrated economic popularizer, Tim Harford describes how the economy works through the surprising history of the pre-cooked meal, the welfare state, the dynamo, the Billy bookshelf, intellectual property, the iPhone, razors and razor blades, paper money, or tax havens. Some of these stories focus on vast, impersonal economic forces; others are tales of human genius or tragedy. Like the attempt to develop a "death ray" which, instead, led to the invention of radar, an essential device for safe air travel.

And all these innovations tell us a story, not only of human ingenuity, but also of the invisible systems that surround us: global supply chains, omnipresent information, money, and ideas. And, at the end of the book, we will be able to bring all these lessons together to ask ourselves how we should think about innovation today. What are the best ways to encourage new ideas? And how can we think clearly about what effects these ideas can have and act with foresight to maximize benefits and mitigate prejudices?