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TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 697
D. J. BLACKWELL*
New and Improved: Inventors and Inventions That Have Changed the Mod-
ern World. By R. Baker. London: British Museum Publications,
1976. Pp. 168; illustrations. ?3.50.
Nowhere in this book does the compiler explain why we need
another list of important patented inventions. He implies, however,
that patent records are a rich source of knowledge that goes un-
examined by scientists, technologists, and historians because the rec-
ords are not readily available, because they are written in patentese,
and because of their sheer volume. Aparently New and Improved was
designed to tease the reader into learning more about patents or to
provide him with another quick reference to patented technology.
Either one of these implied goals is an adequate justification for the
book, if warnings about the use of such lists are clearly posted. Con-
*MR. BLACKWELL has had a lifelong interest in horology and is presently chief en-
gineer of E. Howard and Company, a leading manufacturer of high-grade clocks since
1842. He is vice-president of the American Clock and Watch Museum and a director of
the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors.
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698 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE
James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest. By Albro Martin. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Pp. 663; illustrations. $19.50.
Unlike many authors, Albro Martin delivers exactly what his title
promises. This first scholarly biography of James J. Hill succeeds in
illuminating both that entrepreneur's life and the process by which he
realized his ambition of opening the Northwest.
A child of the Ontario frontier, blind in one eye since age nine, Hill
hustled his way to success in the tradition of the self-made man. At
eighteen he went to St. Paul and plunged into a business career that
began with steamboats, moved to coal, and came to fruition with
railroads. His entire career straddled two key elements of American
industrialization, transportation and energy.
*DR. SHERWOOD teaches the social history of American science and technology in the
University of California at Davis. He is working on a study of the American patent system
for invention.
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