Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
Brainstorms and Mindfarts : The Best and Brightest, Dumbest and Dimmest Inventions in American History - Tom Connor

Brainstorms and Mindfarts

The Best and Brightest, Dumbest and Dimmest Inventions in American History

By: Tom Connor, Jim Downey

Hardcover | 3 June 2021 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover


RRP $49.99

$45.99

or 4 interest-free payments of $11.50 with

 or 

Ships in 10 to 15 business days

An informative and occasionally bizarre collection of American inventions, products, and services of the past, present, and future from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, including the historically significant and commercially successful to the altogether frivolous and utterly useless!
Innovation and entrepreneurism appear inextricably woven into the American DNA. Throughout American history, the great inventors and innovators gazed into the future and saw the products and services that would transform the world. While passionate about creating this new thing called a democracy, our Founding Fathers were also driven to change the way humans lived and worked -- to complete everyday tasks faster, easier, and more efficiently.
As of 2018, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had granted its ten millionth patent. But with over 500,000 applications now being filed annually, fewer than half of these applicants will be granted patents and far fewer still -- an estimated one percent -- will realize commercial success, according to the Office. Some are flawed by mistakes or missing details, others too ridiculous to take seriously, still others simply ahead of their time.
From the brightest and most innovative to the wackiest, most bizarre, and downright crazy, this collection of 100 patents includes funny and informative descriptions and original illustrations, all the while letting you in on what most successful patents have in common, what inspired their creators, and how great inventors view the world.

More in History

Looking from the North : Australian history from the top down - Henry Reynolds
Where It All Went Wrong : The case against John Howard - Amy Remeikis
The Shortest History of Innovation - Andrew Leigh
The Menzies Legacy : Ideals, change, procession, 1960s and beyond - Zachary Gorman
We Do Not Part - Han Kang

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
The Zorg : A Tale of Greed, Murder and the Abolition of Slavery - Siddharth Kara
Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World - Philip Matyszak

RRP $32.99

$26.99

18%
OFF
A Short History of Ancient Rome - Pascal Hughes

RRP $49.99

$38.75

22%
OFF
Japanese Haiku for Cat Lovers - William Scott Wilson

RRP $29.99

$26.75

11%
OFF
The Library That Made Me : 200 years of the State Library of NSW - Richard Neville
All or Nothing : How Trump Recaptured America - Michael Wolff

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
A World Appears : A Journey Into Consciousness - Michael Pollan

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
The Eagle and the Hart : The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV - Helen Castor
The Land Trap : A New History of the World's Oldest Asset - Mike Bird
Plebs Romana : People, Power and Politics in Ancient Rome - Peter Jones