Professor Zorina Khan is trying to answer the question of how the US overtook England and France as an economic powerhouse in the nineteenth century. In this episode, she talks about the unique US attitude to creativity, ideas, and innovation that she believes underlies the country’s industrial successes. Professor Khan also shares anecdotes from her current research focusing on an often neglected and marginalized group of inventors: women. Zorina Khan is the William D. Shipman Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College. Her most recent book, Inventing Ideas: Patents, Prizes, and the Knowledge Economy, was awarded the Alice Hanson Jones Biennial Prize by the Economic History Association, as was her 2005 book, The Democratization of Invention: Patents and Copyrights in American Economic Development.