Petroski takes us back to ancient Rome, where the emperor Nero makes his entrance into a banquet hall with a silver toothpick in his mouth and to a more recent time in Spain, where a young señorita uses the delicately pointed instrument to protect her virtue from someone trying to steal a kiss. ![]() Here is the unexpected story of the simplest of implements-whether made of grass, gold, quill, or wood-a story of engineering and design, of culture and class, and a lesson in how to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary. ![]() As old as mankind and as universal as eating, this useful and ubiquitous tool finally gets its due in this wide-ranging and compulsively readable book. Like The Pencil, Henry Petroski’s The Toothpick is a celebration of a humble yet elegant device.
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