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Summary: Excellent book for agriculturalists who are inventive.
Review: Good reading. The book has two themes. One is the story about the inventor and his struggles to develop and market his new combine (harvester). The other theme is the historic overview of mechanized agriculture and its impact on human life. I read the book twice for a better understanding of the history.
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Summary: Surprise!! A Riveting Read!
Review: I picked this up on an anonymous recommendation and am now wholeheartedly praising it to anyone who will listen! The author, Craig Canine, has fashioned a page-turning, suspense-filled, dramatic telling of an entreprenuer's struggle, laced with a suprisingly fascinating history of the development of modern agricutlure. Not just for business-school types or farmers, it is a tale well-told and absolutely worthy of the high rankings you are seeing here.
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Summary: Great history of Ag as well as machinery development problem
Review: My wife and I agree that there is a certain type of non-fiction work that qualifies as a classic "Rick book." Such a book focuses on a single, quite narrow, topic well off the beaten path. Craig Canine's Dream Reaper: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Investor in the High-Tech, High-Stakes World of Modern Agriculture fits the bill admirably, and is a great book besides. Canine tells two stories. The principal account - and ostensible subject of the book - is of two Kansans, a farmer-tinkerer and his cousin salesman, as they design, refine, and attempt to find investors for a radically new farm machine, a "bi-rotor combine." This highlights the difficulties in bringing to market, in the modern world of restricted markets and a limited number of manufacturers (John Deere, IH, a few others), a greatly improved but radically different machine. The second account, which places the story of the invention in context, is Canine's excellent overview of mechanized agriculture over the last 150 years. Canine's writing is consistently excellent, and his accounts never less than compelling. As the inventors struggle to meet production deadlines while tempers fray and financing becomes tight, the tension is every bit as palpable as any novel. You really want these guys to succeed against very high odds.
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Summary: Wonderful Book!
Review: This is one of those rare books that makes you realize that there is a history and great story behind every invention. Mr Canine does an incredible job at showing this to us, as well as the implications that an invention has in the long run. Truly an incredible book. I hope to see more of this authors work!
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Summary: Wonderful Book!
Review: This is one of those rare books that makes you realize that there is a history and great story behind every invention. Mr Canine does an incredible job at showing this to us, as well as the implications that an invention has in the long run. Truly an incredible book. I hope to see more of this authors work!
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Summary: The best book about product development that I've read.
Review: We take for granted that farmers will get us fed, though less than a century ago, a huge majority of us had to help out at harvest time to make sure. This book is about how advances to the technology of farming were made and are still being made. It is about the harvesting machines, or "combines", and about how these machines were invented. The larger story is about how the odds are stacked against those who dare to advance technology in a meaningful way. We meet modern day renegade heros, who continue to work very hard to overcome the great odds stacked against technology developers. I work as a product developer in "fastening technology" for a major company. Craig Canine's book about the inventors of harvesters teaches more about the process of technology development than any book I've read.
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Summary: Delightful Story of Invention
Review: _Dream_Reaper_ is a delightful tale of two cousins--a mechanic and a salesman in their endeavors to develop a more compact design for the harvesting combine and market the concept through a sponsor. The struggle of Mark Underwood in creating the Bi-Rotor machinery to reduce grain spillage and parts clutter provides a glimpse into the hardships of inventors. The insightful interpersonal skills of Ralph Lagergren reveal a confidence in not settling for corporate comfort, but in taking a big risk for a big payoff. In intervening chapters, Canine diverts from the story to introduce the history of harvesting and its mechanization . The reader learns of many fascinating conversation topics, such as the etymology of "tribulation", a patent infringement lawsuit on a reaper that launched Abraham Lincoln's political career, the corn growing experiments of Henry Wallace, or the genetic differences between grains and weeds enabling an aromatic compound to kill the latter without affecting the former. Whether one is interested in agriculture, machinery, history, Canine's prose makes the book a pure joy to read.............
Rating:
Summary: Delightful Story of Invention
Review: _Dream_Reaper_ is a delightful tale of two cousins--a mechanic and a salesman in their endeavors to develop a more compact design for the harvesting combine and market the concept through a sponsor. The struggle of Mark Underwood in creating the Bi-Rotor machinery to reduce grain spillage and parts clutter provides a glimpse into the hardships of inventors. The insightful interpersonal skills of Ralph Lagergren reveal a confidence in not settling for corporate comfort, but in taking a big risk for a big payoff. In intervening chapters, Canine diverts from the story to introduce the history of harvesting and its mechanization . The reader learns of many fascinating conversation topics, such as the etymology of "tribulation", a patent infringement lawsuit on a reaper that launched Abraham Lincoln's political career, the corn growing experiments of Henry Wallace, or the genetic differences between grains and weeds enabling an aromatic compound to kill the latter without affecting the former. Whether one is interested in agriculture, machinery, history, Canine's prose makes the book a pure joy to read.............
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