Год выпуска: 2012 Автор: William Rosen Издательство: Страниц: 376 ISBN: 0226726347
Описание
Hardly a week passes without some high-profile court case that features intellectual property at its center. But how did the belief that one could own an idea come about? And how did that belief change the way humankind lives and works?William Rosen, author of Justiniana??s Flea, seeks to answer these questions and more with The Most Powerful Idea in the World. A lively and passionate study of the engineering and scientific breakthroughs that led to the steam engine, this book argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution: historya??s first sustained era of economic improvement. To do so, Rosen conjures up an eccentric cast of characters, including the legal philosophers who enabled most the inventive society in millennia, andA the scientists and inventorsa??Thomas Newcomen, Robert Boyle, and James Watta??who helped to create and perfect the steam engine over the centuries. With wit and...
