One of the best books I've read in a long while. Doesn't tell you what the most powerful idea is until the last sentence, (but you can probably figure it out).

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This is the product of many years of thought. While written in a popular style, much of the text is about engineering. The effects of engineering breakthroughs and especially improvements are considered at length. I myself was interested in Chapter Thirteen 'The Fuel of Interest' in which global warming is addressed. The author declares the only solution is either sequestration of the carbon in the atmosphere or inexpensive power that is cheaper than coal. Coal power cost ten percent of the cost of methods now being adopted in the First World and so coal will otherwise remain popular in Asia. While bringing it all together he also examines why America prospered so much (eager adoption of inventions, patent law, etc.).
Sample of his prose: "Steam turbines produce more than three-quarters of the world's electricity, but they don't drive the successors to the Rocket and engine #641. Diesel-electric trains, like automobiles and propeller-driven aircraft use internal combustion--steam engines, because their furnaces boil water in a chamber outside the cylinder, are external combustion machines--for the same reason that high pressure was needed to put steam on the move in the first place: a superior power-to-weight ratio."
Some footnotes for clarification, endnotes for sources, bibliography, index.

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