The Little Book of Big Ideas: 150 Concepts and Breakthroughs that Transformed History

I chanced across this title in a bookshop while waiting in the departure area at London’s St. Pancras International Station. It seemed to promise some interesting and informative reading for the long journeys ahead and had the added advantage of portability at little more than pocket size.

This may be a small book, but it is one with large ambition. Tackling the “150 Concepts and Breakthroughs that Transformed History” in just over 300 pages is hardly and easy undertaking, but not one that appears to have deterred author David Smith or his publisher Michael O’Mara Books, a company best known...