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"The Most Powerful Idea in the World argues that the very notion of intellectual property drove not only the invention of the steam engine but also the entire Industrial Revolution." -- Back cover.
In the middle of the sixth century, the world's smallest organism collided with the world's mightiest empire. With the death of twenty-five million people, the Roman Empire, under her last great emperor, Justinian, was decimated. Before Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that carries bubonic plague, was finished, both the Roman and Persian empires were easy pickings for the armies of Muhammad on their conquering march out of Arabia. In its wake, the plague - history's first pandemic - marked the transition from the age of Mediterranean empires to the age of European nation-states - from antiquity to the medieval world. A narrative history that melds contemporary sources with modern disciplines, ...
The epic history of how antibiotics were born, saving millions of lives and creating a vast new industry known as Big Pharma. As late as the 1930s, virtually no drug intended for sickness did any good; doctors could set bones, deliver babies, and offer palliative care. That all changed in less than a generation with the discovery and development of a new category of medicine known as antibiotics. By 1955, the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes had been transformed, trivializing once-deadly infections. William Rosen captures this revolution with all its false starts, lucky surprises, and eccentric characters. He explains why, given the complex nature of bacteria—a...
The incredible true story of how a cycle of rain, cold, disease, and warfare created the worst famine in European history—years before the Black Death, from the author of Justinian's Flea and the forthcoming Miracle Cure In May 1315, it started to rain. For the seven disastrous years that followed, Europeans would be visited by a series of curses unseen since the third book of Exodus: floods, ice, failures of crops and cattle, and epidemics not just of disease, but of pike, sword, and spear. All told, six million lives—one-eighth of Europe’s total population—would be lost. With a category-defying knowledge of science and history, William Rosen tells the stunning story of the oft-overlooked Great Famine with wit and drama and demonstrates what it all means for today’s discussions of climate change.
The only man to serve as president and chief justice, who approached every decision in constitutional terms, defending the Founders’ vision against new populist threats to American democracy William Howard Taft never wanted to be president and yearned instead to serve as chief justice of the United States. But despite his ambivalence about politics, the former federal judge found success in the executive branch as governor of the Philippines and secretary of war, and he won a resounding victory in the presidential election of 1908 as Theodore Roosevelt’s handpicked successor. In this provocative assessment, Jeffrey Rosen reveals Taft’s crucial role in shaping how America balances popul...
Happiness and Utility brings together experts on utilitarianism to explore the concept of happiness within the utilitarian tradition, situating it in earlier eighteenth-century thinkers and working through some of its developments at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Drawing on a range of philosophical and historical approaches to the study of the central idea of utilitarianism, the chapters provide a rich set of insights into a founding component of ethics and modern political and economic thought, as well as political and economic practice. In doing so, the chapters examine the multiple dimensions of utilitarianism and the contested interpretations of this standard for judgement in morality and public policy.
Today, we don't get nearly enough play in our lives. At school, kids are drilled on exams, while at home we're all glued to our phones and screens. Former children's laureate and bestselling author, Michael Rosen, is here to show us how to put this right - and why it matters so much for creativity, resilience and much more. Packed with silliness, activities and prompts for creative indoor and outdoor play for all ages - with specially illustrated pages for everything from doodling to word play and after-dinner games.
How can marketers navigate the growing array of marketing specialties, multiplying media options and data sources, and increasing content saturation to improve effectiveness and return on investment? How can they provide consumers with seamless experiences of value across channels that overcome behavioral barriers and actually deliver results? In The Activation Imperative, William Rosen and Laurence Minsky provide a straightforward guide for marketers to move beyond building brands to activating them—from simply projecting what a brand is to optimizing what it does—to move people closer to transaction. Drawing on years of research and experience with the world’s most sophisticated bran...
On a Saturday morning in December 1973, a section of New York's West Side Highway collapsed under the weight of a truck full of asphalt. The road was closed, seemingly for good, and the 80,000 cars that traveled it each day had to find a new way to their destinations. It ought to have produced traffic chaos, but it didn't. The cars simply vanished. It was a moment of revelation: the highway had induced the demand for car travel. It was a classic case of "build it and they will come," but for the first time the opposite had been shown to be true: knock it down and they will go away. Samuel I. Schwartz was inspired by the lesson. He started to reimagine cities, most of all his beloved New York...