The Next Big Thing: A History of the Boom-or-bust Moments That Shaped the Modern World

We are always hearing about the Next Big Thing. Whether it is a new iPhone or the New World, the freshest and newest inventions, discoveries, and fads always loom large in the public mind. The impact that everyone thinks these ＂next big things＂ will have is often more important than the actual impact it generates. After all, if it fails, it will be almost immediately forgotten. The Next Big Thing searches through 3,000 years of Western culture to find the colorful and key steps (and missteps) that led us to where we are today.

Richard Faulk is the author of Gross America: Your Coast-to-Coast Guide to All Things Gross. Faulk has also written music reviews and profiles for the Silicon Valley Metro and Content magazine, contributed to The Morbid Anatomy Anthology, and lectured at Observatory in Brooklyn, New York.