This comprehensive, landmark book surveys products our society has made since pre European times. Begining with ingenious Maori tools, traps, lures and more, it moves to pioneer-era inventions, the industrial and agricultural inventions of early entrepreneurs such as Hayes Machinery and the products of the housewife's friends - Shacklock and Fisher & Paykel - to our modern era, with its sophisticated products such as the Yike bike and Formway furniture, products which hold their own in international company.

Many of the hundreds of products duiscussed are items we all use, or our parents and our grandparents used, every day: wool pressers, bathroom sinks, petrol cans, bicycles, stoves, washing machines, electric kettles, TVs and radios, crockpots, rocking chairs, industrial dredges, dishwashers, forestry tools, spinning wheels, office chairs, outdoor seating ,rubbish bins, children's toys, heaters, electric fences, stock drenching guns, gumboots, buses. the list goes on and on.
There's inspiration, dedication and perspiration behind the huge range of products that have been made and designed here, and enthusiastic and expert author Michael Smythe shares with the reader the 'essence of Kiwi' that's in all of them.