Review Detail

The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide to Inventing the World does a great job explaining major inventions from humankind and enticing readers to be curious. I liked that the book provided a comprehensive overview of humanity's achievements around the world and throughout history. The language was informative, clear, and the tone conversational, making it an interesting read to get absorbed by.
Small features that were a nice touch were telling the longitude and latitude of where the invention took place, a general highlighted word map for visualization, and where the invention can be found today, as well as the status of availability for the public to view them.
The book didn’t try to chart inventions linearly or within branches, but gave a rather circular impression of how one invention inspired another or evolved into something completely different over time.
Overall, this was an interesting and informative read. It would pair great with Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World series. Perfect for curious people, trivia, history, engineering, and STEM fans.