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Age of Invention, by Anton Howes

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Tales from the history of innovation. Click to read Age of Invention, by Anton Howes, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

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146 from 5 Oct 2019 to 28 Sep 2026
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2026 3

  1. Age of Invention: Salt Syndicate, Part I
  2. Age of Invention: Why Scotland Succeeded
  3. Age of Invention: Tudor Trade War

2025 5

  1. Age of Invention: Joel Mokyr's Nobel
  2. Age of Invention: The Century-Long Depression
  3. Age of Invention: All Fired Up
  4. Age of Invention: Just Kiln Time
  5. Age of Invention: How Coal Really Won

2024 5

  1. Age of Invention: The Coal Conquest
  2. Age of Invention: The Dutch Salten Age
  3. Age of Invention: The Second Soul, Part II
  4. Age of Invention: The Second Soul, Part I
  5. Age of Invention: Unsung Materials

2023 26

  1. Age of Invention: More the Merrier
  2. Age of Invention: The Interactive History of the Steam Engine
  3. Age of Invention: How to be a Public Historian
  4. Age of Invention: Outdoing the Ancients
  5. Age of Invention: Lessons from the Rise of Coal
  6. Age of Invention: How to Steal Technology
  7. Age of Invention: Open History
  8. Age of Invention: Does History have a Replication Crisis?
  9. Age of Invention: Cash Cows
  10. Age of Invention: The Mountain of the Copper King
  11. Age of Invention: Cort Case
  12. Age of Invention: Water World
  13. Age of Invention: Freight Expectations
  14. Age of Invention: How the Steam Engine was Invented
  15. Age of Invention: The Dutch Wheel of Fortune
  16. Age of Invention: Blueprint for a New Great Exhibition
  17. Age of Invention: The Industrial Romantics
  18. Age of Invention: England's Iron Volcano
  19. Age of Invention: Working for Watt
  20. Age of Invention: The First Intangibles Revolution
  21. Age of Invention: Dangerous History
  22. Age of Invention: Capital and the King Killers
  23. Age of Invention: How the Dutch Did it Better
  24. Age of Invention: Shellfish Monopolists
  25. Age of Invention: The Bourgeois Supremacy
  26. Age of Invention: The Pull of Cities

2022 29

  1. Age of Invention: Sweet on Savery
  2. Age of Invention: Counting Caloric
  3. Age of Invention: The Idea of Energy
  4. Age of Invention: The Beacons are Lit!
  5. Age of Invention: Getting Into Hot Water
  6. Age of Invention: Why wasn't the Steam Engine Invented Earlier? Part III
  7. Age of Invention: How To Get Writing Done
  8. Age of Invention: Why Globalisation Skipped Renewable Energy
  9. Age of Invention: Lucca More Closely
  10. Age of Invention: Victorian Confidence
  11. Age of Invention: Why wasn't the Steam Engine Invented Earlier? Part II
  12. Age of Invention: Perpetual Motion
  13. Age of Invention: Quiz #2
  14. Age of Invention: Why wasn't the Steam Engine Invented Earlier? Part I
  15. Age of Invention: Prince Henry's Men
  16. Age of Invention: The Chosen Fuel
  17. Age of Invention: Leveraged Philanthropy
  18. Age of Invention: Myth-busting Innovation Prizes
  19. Age of Invention: London Coal-ing
  20. Age of Invention: Thread of Gold
  21. Age of Invention: Money Matters
  22. Age of Invention: New Atlantis
  23. Age of Invention: Business of Beer
  24. Age of Invention: Back to Basics
  25. Age of Invention: Playing Favourites
  26. Age of Invention: Unruly City
  27. Age of Invention: House of Hell
  28. Age of Invention: "Devil Land"
  29. Age of Invention: The Great Contract

2021 36

  1. Age of Invention: Fact Feast
  2. Age of Invention: Parliament Rift
  3. Age of Invention: The Year Ahead
  4. Age of Invention: Jacobus Rex
  5. Golden Age of Invention: Vile and Stinking Custom
  6. Age of Invention: Bears, Bulls, and the Bard
  7. Golden Age of Invention: God's Gift
  8. Age of Invention: The Statute of Monopolies, Part II
  9. Golden Age of Invention: Brooke's Bill
  10. Age of Invention: The Statute of Monopolies, Part I
  11. Golden Age of Invention: The Bacon Role
  12. Age of Invention: The Fast and the Finance
  13. Age of Invention: Capital Finds a Way
  14. Age of Invention: The New Space Empires
  15. Age of Invention: Knights of the Caribbean
  16. Age of Invention: Plague of the Sea
  17. Golden Age of Invention: A Capital Idea
  18. Age of Invention: The Dutch Supremacy
  19. Golden Age of Invention: Matter of Factor
  20. Age of Invention: Square Dealers
  21. Age of Invention: Knowledge Lost and Found
  22. Age of Invention: An Absent Atlantic
  23. Golden Age of Invention: Rise of the Solutionists?
  24. Age of Invention: Capital Grains
  25. Golden Age of Invention: Britain's Missing Periphery
  26. Age of Invention: Grain Drain
  27. Golden Age of Invention: Getting Enclosure
  28. Age of Invention: Honours for Innovators
  29. Age of Invention: Chivalric romance, Cairo eunuchs, and the Turkgeld
  30. Age of Invention: Why Didn't the Ottomans Print More?
  31. Golden Age of Invention: Secretorum Inventae
  32. Age of Invention: Did the Ottomans Ban Print?
  33. Age of Invention: Sails Force
  34. Age of Invention: The Industry of All Nations
  35. Age of Invention: On the Silver Screen
  36. Age of Invention: Upstream, Downstream

2020 30

  1. Age of Invention: The Paradox of Progress
  2. Age of Invention: Live and Let Dye
  3. Age of Invention: Empire of Wool
  4. Age of Invention: London the Great
  5. Age of Invention: Pb & Fray
  6. Age of Invention: The Tools of Absolutism
  7. Age of Invention: How to Build a State
  8. Age of Invention: Birth of the Business Corporation
  9. Age of Invention: The Origin of Patents
  10. Age of Invention: The Spanish Engine
  11. Age of Invention: The Agglomerationists
  12. Age of Invention: The Weight of Air
  13. Age of Invention: Make Statues Virtuous Again
  14. Age of Invention: Observing the Occident
  15. Age of Invention: Remaking the State
  16. Age of Invention: The Power of Exhibitions
  17. Age of Invention: Patents vs Prizes
  18. Age of Invention: England's Peculiar Disgrace
  19. Age of Invention: A Breath of Fresh Air
  20. Age of Invention: Wash your Hands!
  21. Age of Invention: Pennies for Your Thought
  22. Age of Invention: Old Coppernose
  23. Age of Invention: Finding the Latitude
  24. Age of Invention: Where Be Dragons?
  25. Age of Invention: Sugar, Saltpetre, and All Things Sweeter
  26. Age of Invention: The Forgotten Golden Age
  27. Age of Invention: Escape from Malthus
  28. Age of Invention: The Real Roaring Twenties
  29. Age of Invention: The Scheming 20s
  30. Age of Invention: The Transformative '20s

2019 12

  1. Age of Invention: Improveable Beings
  2. Age of Invention: Exploding Telegraphs
  3. Age of Invention: Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
  4. Age of Invention: The English Crisis
  5. Age of Invention: The House of Trade
  6. Age of Invention: Wonder of the World
  7. Age of Invention: To the Drawing Board
  8. Age of Invention: Rise of the Mathematicians
  9. Age of Invention: The Crucial Century
  10. Age of Invention: Trusting the Ancients
  11. Age of Invention: When Alchemy Works
  12. Tales from the history of innovation.