Imagination and a Pile of Junk

Fans of Bill Bryson will love this celebration of the extraordinary people who created the modern world. Trevor Norton weaves an witty history that includes a seductive mix of eureka moments, disasters and dirty tricks.

Although inventors were often scientists or engineers, many were not: Samuel Morse (Morse code) was a painter, Laszlo Biro (the ballpoint pen) was a sculptor and hypnotist, and Logie Baird (TV) sold boot polish. The inventor of the automatic telephone switchboard was an undertaker who believed the exchange operator was diverting his calls to rival morticians and so decided to make all telephone operators redundant.

Inventors are mavericks so indifferent to conventional wisdom that contemporary critics were often dismissive of even their best ideas: radio had 'no future,' electric light was 'an idiotic idea' and X-rays were 'a hoax.' Even so, the state of New Jersey moved to ban X-ray opera glasses. The head of the General Post Office rejected telephones as unneccesary as there were 'plenty of small boys to run messages.'

Some inventions were almost stillborn: the first vacuum cleaner was horse-drawn on a cart; and the first zip fasteners didn't zip or fasten. It often took a while for great inventions to be exploited: transistors languished in hearing aids for ten years before they transformed radios; twenty years after anaesthetics were invented, some hosiptals were still operating without them; and vaccination ('a giant delusion') had to wait almost a century before it was fully accepted. Even the inventor didn't always know the real use of their discovery: Edison designed the phonograph for dictation, not to play music; and Nobel thought his dynamite would bring about world peace. Norton also answers other burning questions. How did embroidery save thousands of lives? Why did it take a world war to get women to wear bras?

This is a magical place where eccentrics are always in season and their stories are usually unbelievable - but rest assured, nothing has been invented.