The public sector's role in innovation is explored in cogent detail in an important study that reveals the complexities, benefits, and pitfalls of the innovative state in action. The authors, all noted experts in the field, examine the different approaches that have been taken by governments in Europe, the United States, and Asia to demonstrate how innovative bureaucracies--organizations designing and implementing a wide range of policies conducive to innovation--function, succeed, or fail. Kattel, Drechsler, and Karo advance the argument that the methods by which policy choices are made and implemented are as important as the policies themselves, and they offer strategies for overcoming financial and political