Firebrand conservative columnist, commentator, Internet entrepreneur,
and #1 New York Times bestselling author Michelle Malkin tells the
fascinating, little-known stories of the inventors who have contributed
to American exceptionalism and technological progress.
In July 2012, President Obama infamously proclaimed: "If you've got a
business--you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Malkin wholeheartedly disagrees. Who Built That is a rousing tribute
to the hidden American capitalists who pioneered everyday inventions.
They're the little big things we take for granted: bottle caps and
glassware, tissue paper, flashlights, railroad signals, bridge cables,
revolutionary plastics, and more.
Malkin takes readers on an eclectic journey of American capitalism, from
the colonial period to the Industrial Age to the present, spotlighting
awe-inspiring and little-known "tinkerpreneurs" who achieved their
dreams of doing well by doing good. You'll learn how famous patent
holders Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain championed the nation's unique
system of intellectual property rights; how glass manufacturing
mavericks Edward Libbey and Mike Owens defied naysayers to revolutionize
food, beverage, and pharmaceutical packaging; how penniless Croatian
immigrant Anthony Maglica started his $400 million Maglite flashlight
business in a rented garage; and many more riveting stories that explain
our country's fertile climate for scientific advancement and
entrepreneurship.
To understand who we are as people, we need to first understand what
motivates America's ordinary and extraordinary makers and risk-takers.
Driven by her own experience as a second-generation beneficiary of the
American Dream, Malkin skillfully and passionately rebuts collectivist
orthodoxy to celebrate the engineers, mechanics, designers, artisans,
and relentless tinkerers of all backgrounds who embody our nation's
spirit of self-made entrepreneurialism.
