"You don't know who I am, do You? But you want to know." (holds up safety pin) "Take a look at this. And imagine yourself in the library at Alexandria. Because it's there we get our first clue about how I got to be where I am, with you watching me from where you are."
Burke's "unique style" mainly consists of combining the
history of
technology with
storytelling: he'll take one
invention or
inventor, and show how an
improvement in technology introduces a "
trigger effect" which has implications on
culture and technology across
time and
geography- one invention either
inspires or creates the
need for another, or
solves a totally different
problem than the one for which it was created. Burke usually
connects technology we find
indispensable today (the integrated circuit, radio, telephony, print) to its origins in
Medieval or
Ancient times.