What is innovation? How important is innovation in business? How can we use it to succeed? In the last 150 years our world has been transformed - largely due to innovation. Our parents were born into a world where television had yet to be invented, and there was no penicillin or frozen food. Our great grandparents began life in a world with no light bulbs, cars, telephones, or airplanes. This book looks at what innovation is and why it can affect us so profoundly. It examines how it occurs, who stimulates it, how it is pursued, and what its outcomes are, both positive and negative. It shows that innovation is hugely challenging and failure is common, yet it is essential to our social and economic progress.

Josiah Wedgwood: the world's greatest innovator -- Joseph Schumpeter's gales of creative destruction -- London's wobbly bridge: learning from failure -- Stephanie Kwolek's new polymer: from labs to riches -- Thomas Edison's organizational genius -- Innovating the future.