Innovation: The Key to Prosperity

BOOK REVIEW: The very recently published book INNOVATION: The key to prosperity by Aris Melissaratos and N.L. Slabbert is quite the interesting and nugget packed book. Taken aback, this Blogger was, by the advocacy of MagLev train technology as a means to spark a transport revolution in America at the start of the book.

Maybe it was from the experience riding the Shanghi MagLev the past July; or, perhaps, it is my SiFi-thing of utilization of MagLev trains on the Moon to boost payload to orbit, I don't know. But this Blogger was impressed by the notion that MagLev technology should be pushed by the nation as a new alternative for rapid transport.

At one point the book caused me to have some anxiety from the realization that we are mindfully neglecting innovation in this nation and living largely upon the innovations of the World War II generation. Nothing is new only modern forms of prior inventions. It made me uncomfortable while reading those passages.

Aris Melissaratos is an interesting fellow within the Mid-Atlantic Region and appears to have been a major contributor to innovation-thought. But American East-West and North-South MagLev trains, such as those in Japan is advocated. This blogger accepted the premise proposed by the authors that now is the time for America to take the lead in this technology - among others. A MagLev train could go from New York City to Atlanta in 4 hrs. FOUR HOURS!

The author impressed me right from the start with his historic discussion of Abe Lincoln. In Lincoln's day "the transcontinental railroad, which in those days was as new-fangled an idea as you could get." But "Lincoln was a railroad lawyer, representing and supporting the leaders of technological change. Putting a railroad advocate in the mid-19th Century White House was like electing an ardent magnetic levitation, artificial intelliegnce, nanotechnology, or Mars colonization proponent today." WOW! Changed my view and historic outlook of Old Abe indeed.

This book is much more than advocacy of MagLev, it attempts to reach the essence of why America needs to be an innovation nation again.