Key Insights:

1. Historians devote more time and thought to documenting human actions than to understanding how technology has influenced those actions.
2. Without glass, we would not have vaccinations, space travel, or high literacy rates.
3. Air conditioning moves around cold air, but it has also moved around millions of people over the past century.
4. The most impactful use of sound is what it enables us to see rather than what it helps us hear.
5. The light bulb and other forms of artificial lighting came about because of what was discovered in a sperm whale’s skull.