Never before has a single richly illustrated volume encompassed the full sweep of our country's inventiveness, from Franlin's experiments with electricity to the dawn of the Atomic Age. More than one thousand rare documentary pictures are combined with 130,000 words of dramatic narrative in this, the first history of its kind ever published. . . Here are the great inventions and discoveries, the scientific thinking and experiments back of them, the lives and personalities of the men who made the magic, the social forces that inspired or inhibted their work, how their contributions have affected our culture, our political and economic history, our manners and morals.