Anderson, who has been observer and chronicler of the web, now shares the details of his childhood and family history of invention and entrepreneurism.

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As well as explaining the underlying physiology, she makes several detours into the history of science, recounting such breakthroughs as the invention of the thermometer and the voyage of the first submarine, which was built around 1620 and cruised down the Thames from Westminster to Greenwich.

ECONOMIST: The science of survival

"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer, " humorist Dave Barry has written.

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What do you think is the greatest invention that has occurred in your lifetime, and the greatest invention in the history of humanity?

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He is a senior research associate of the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History.

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Rather than a history of inventions, Mr Rosen's book is a study of invention itself, the process of tinkering with an existing mechanism to make it better.

ECONOMIST: Why it started in Britain

William Rosen, an American former editor and publisher, ranks it alongside the invention of agriculture as one of the two most important developments in history.

ECONOMIST: Why it started in Britain

Very much the same events (no, not Chikatilo, but Stalinism), the time span, are covered in the novel and the history book: but we clearly and obviously hold them to different standards about their allowable moving around of events and invention of characters in order to tell those similar stories (clearly, I regard both of them as being about the horror of living under totalitarianism).

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