Review:
Praise for "The Most Powerful Idea in the World"
"""A sneaky history - ostensibly about the origins of the steam engine, though actually about much more.. As someone who spun an eclectic history from small things in his previous book, "Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe," Rosen is a natural and playful storyteller, and his digressions both inform the narrative and lend it an eccentric and engaging rhythm...offering a forceful argument in the debate, which has gone on for centuries, over whether patents promote innovation or retard it."
--"The New York Times Book Review"
"Wonderfully eclectic.... The author dismisses the more traditional explanations about why the industrial revolution began in Britain--such as an abundance of coal or the insatiable demands of the Royal Navy--concluding, instead, that it was England's development of the patent system that was the decisive factor.... It is a plausible conclusion and Mr Rosen makes a powerful case.
"--The Economist"
"Brilliant... an entertaining narrative weaving together the clever characters, incremental innovations and historical context behind the engines that gave birth to our modern world.... Rosen has a facility for the telling anecdote and the quirky aside."
-- Bill Gates in "The Gates Notes "&
The Annual Letter of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
"The book has a crackling energy to it, often as riveting as it is educational. Rosen, in pursuit of evidence, makes interesting, even exciting, such subjects as patent law from the Roman Tiberius on, technological innovation in ancient China and the role of practice in separating out accomplished performers from the 'merely good'.... The playfulness and invention evident in these descriptions carry over into chapters rich in detail and imbued with a sparkling intelligence."
--"The Los Angeles Times"
"Regardless of what one thinks of Rosen's core thesis, he is an able guide throu
"A kink in Europe's climate during the fourteenth century indirectly triggered a seven-year cataclysm that left six million dead, William Rosen reveals in this rich interweaving of agronomy, meteorology, economics and history. The Great Famine ended the explosion in agricultural productivity of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, which affected mainly North Atlantic civilizations. Rosen deftly delineates the backstory and the perfect storm of heavy rains, hard winters, livestock epidemics, and war leading to the catastrophe."--"Nature"
"Rosen... delights in the minutiae of history, down to the most fascinating footnotes. Here, the author delivers engrossing disquisitions on climate patterns and dynastic entanglements between England and Scotland (among others), and he posits that the decisive advent of cooler, wetter weather in the early 14th century signaled the beginning of the end of the medieval good times... A work that glows from the author's relish for his subject."--"Kirkus "
"The 'Winter is coming' refrain from HBO's 'Game of Thrones' fits this story of medieval Europe's great famine to a T."
--New York Post"
"A kink in Europe's climate during the fourteenth century indirectly triggered a seven-year cataclysm that left six million dead, William Rosen reveals in this rich interweaving of agronomy, meteorology, economics and history. The Great Famine ended the explosion in agricultural productivity of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, which affected mainly North Atlantic civilizations. Rosen deftly delineates the backstory and the perfect storm of heavy rains, hard winters, livestock epidemics, and war leading to the catastrophe."
--"Nature"
"Rosen... delights in the minutiae of history, down to the most fascinating footnotes. Here, the author delivers engrossing disquisitions on climate patterns and dynastic entanglements between England and Scotland (among others), and he posits that the decisive advent of cooler, wetter weather in the early 14th century signaled the beginning of the end of the medieval good times... A work that glows from the author's relish for his subject."
--"Kirkus "
"The 'Winter is coming' refrain from HBO's 'Game of Thrones' fits this story of medieval Europe's great famine to a T."
--New York Post"
"A kink in Europe's climate during the fourteenth century indirectly triggered a seven-year cataclysm that left six million dead, William Rosen reveals in this rich interweaving of agronomy, meteorology, economics and history. The Great Famine ended the explosion in agricultural productivity of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, which affected mainly North Atlantic civilizations. Rosen deftly delineates the backstory and the perfect storm of heavy rains, hard winters, livestock epidemics, and war leading to the catastrophe."
--"Nature"
"Rosen... delights in the minutiae of history, down to the most fascinating footnotes. Here, the author delivers engrossing disquisitions on climate patterns and dynastic entanglements between England and Scotland (among others), and he posits that the decisive advent of cooler, wetter weather in the early 14th century signaled the beginning of the end of the medieval good times... A work that glows from the author's relish for his subject."
--"Kirkus "
"""William Rosen is a good enough writer to hold interest and maintain the fraught relations between nature and politics as a running theme. He ends "The Third Horseman "with a stark observation: in some ways, global ecology is more precarious nowadays than it was in the 1300s."
--"Milwaukee Express"
"Rosen is a terrific storyteller and engaging stylist; his vigorous recaps of famous battles and sketches of various colorful characters will entertain readers not unduly preoccupied by thematic rigor.... Rosen's principal goal, however, is not to horrify us, but to make us think.... While vividly re-creating a bygone civilization, he invites us to look beyond our significant but ultimately superficial differences and recognize that we too live in fragile equilibrium with the natural world whose resour
"The 'Winter is coming' refrain from HBO's 'Game of Thrones' fits this story of medieval Europe's great famine to a T."
--New York Post
"A kink in Europe's climate during the fourteenth century indirectly triggered a seven-year cataclysm that left six million dead, William Rosen reveals in this rich interweaving of agronomy, meteorology, economics and history. The Great Famine ended the explosion in agricultural productivity of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, which affected mainly North Atlantic civilizations. Rosen deftly delineates the backstory and the perfect storm of heavy rains, hard winters, livestock epidemics, and war leading to the catastrophe."
--"Nature"
"Rosen... delights in the minutiae of history, down to the most fascinating footnotes. Here, the author delivers engrossing disquisitions on climate patterns and dynastic entanglements between England and Scotland (among others), and he posits that the decisive advent of cooler, wetter weather in the early 14th century signaled the beginning of the end of the medieval good times... A work that glows from the author's relish for his subject."
--"Kirkus """"William Rosen is a good enough writer to hold interest and maintain the fraught relations between nature and politics as a running theme. He ends "The Third Horseman "with a stark observation: in some ways, global ecology is more precarious nowadays than it was in the 1300s."
--"Milwaukee Express"
"Rosen is a terrific storyteller and engaging stylist; his vigorous recaps of famous battles and sketches of various colorful characters will entertain readers not unduly preoccupied by thematic rigor.... Rosen's principal goal, however, is not to horrify us, but to make us think.... While vividly re-creating a bygone civilization, he invites us to look beyond our significant but ultimately superficial differences and recognize that we too live in fragile equilibrium with the natural world whose resources we recklessly exploit, and that like our medieval forebears we may well be vulnerable to 'a sudden shift in the weather.'"
"--The Daily Beast"
The 'Winter is coming' refrain from HBO s 'Game of Thrones' fits this story of medieval Europe s great famine to a T.
--New York Post
"A kink in Europe s climate during the fourteenth century indirectly triggered a seven-year cataclysm that left six million dead, William Rosen reveals in this rich interweaving of agronomy, meteorology, economics and history. The Great Famine ended the explosion in agricultural productivity of the 400-year Medieval Warm Period, which affected mainly North Atlantic civilizations. Rosen deftly delineates the backstory and the perfect storm of heavy rains, hard winters, livestock epidemics, and war leading to the catastrophe."
--"Nature"
"Rosen... delights in the minutiae of history, down to the most fascinating footnotes. Here, the author delivers engrossing disquisitions on climate patterns and dynastic entanglements between England and Scotland (among others), and he posits that the decisive advent of cooler, wetter weather in the early 14th century signaled the beginning of the end of the medieval good times... A work that glows from the author's relish for his subject."
--"Kirkus"" "William Rosen is a good enough writer to hold interest and maintain the fraught relations between nature and politics as a running theme. He ends"The Third Horseman"with a stark observation: in some ways, global ecology is more precarious nowadays than it was in the 1300s.
--"Milwaukee Express"
Rosen is a terrific storyteller and engaging stylist; his vigorous recaps of famous battles and sketches of various colorful characters will entertain readers not unduly preoccupied by thematic rigor.... Rosen s principal goal, however, is not to horrify us, but to make us think.... While vividly re-creating a bygone civilization, he invites us to look beyond our significant but ultimately superficial differences and recognize that we too live in fragile equilibrium with the natural world whose resources we recklessly exploit, and that like our medieval forebears we may well be vulnerable to a sudden shift in the weather.
"--The Daily Beast""
About the Author:
William Rosen, a former editor and publisher at Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and The Free Press, is the author of "Justinian's Flea "and "The Most Powerful Idea in the World. "He lives in New Jersey.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.