Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men

Marçal, Katrine

ISBN 10: 1419758055 / ISBN 13: 9781419758058

Published by Harry N. Abrams, 2022

About this Item

Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable. Any access codes or passwords originally included with the book may be expired, used or no longer valid. Image is stock photo and cover art edition may be different than pictured.

Seller Inventory # MERV.1419758055.A

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1419758055
• ISBN 13: 9781419758058
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: acceptable

About this title

Synopsis

An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias has skewed innovation, technology, and history.

Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

It all starts with a rolling suitcase. Though the wheel was invented some 5,000 years ago, and the suitcase in the 19th century, it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the holdup? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because “real men” carried their bags, no matter how heavy.

Mother of Invention is a fascinating and eye-opening examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Because it wasn’t just the suitcase. Drawing on examples from electric cars to tech billionaires, Marçal shows how gender bias stifles the economy and holds us back, delaying innovations, sometimes by hundreds of years, and distorting our understanding of our history. While we talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, we might as well talk about the Ceramic Age or the Flax Age, since these technologies were just as important. But inventions associated with women are not considered to be technology in the same way as those associated with men. Mother of Invention is a sweeping tour of the global economy with a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential.

“From wheeled suitcases to witch trials, Katrine Marçal makes you look again at history in this funny, clever, and provocative book.”—Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights

About the Author

Katrine Marçal is a Swedish writer, journalist, and correspondent for the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Her first book, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?, was shortlisted for the August Prize and won the Lagercrantzen Award. She lives in London.