Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but not perfect
Review: The story in this book deserves to be told. The bibliography contains biographies of the main characters and accounts of such events as the construction of the Niagara power plant. This book brings a new perspective by pulling together the intersecting threads of these lives through these events, and thereby makes them more interesting and easier to understand.
For someone who has lived in Silicon Valley for two decades, the similarities in the behaviors of entrepreneurs, managers and investors between today and the late 19th century are striking. The investors in a hurry to fire company founders are familiar characters, as is the behavior of companies that pick the brains of suppliers through a bidding process before developing their own technology, or the constant conflicts about intellectual property.
Despite its merits, I cannot give this book five stars because it contains irrelevant materials and inaccurate details, and is written in a florid, sloppy style. For example, the two pages about the assassination of James Garfield are unnecessary, because it has nothing to do with electrification. As a milestone in time, it might rate one line, but not more. Otherwise, as a reader, you keep expecting it to be connected somehow with the subject, but it isn't.
Minor inaccuracies in the text also bothered me, not for their intrinsic importance but for the doubt they cast in my mind about the validity of everything else. Tesla, for example, is introduced as a Serb. Then he is a Croat, and finally a Serb again. As another reader pointed out, the author does not seem to know the difference between power and energy. Chapter 2 is a short history of electromagnetism up to the 1870s, which does not mention Maxwell. In the afterword, Edison is also described as the inventor of motion pictures through his Vitascope system, which was introduced five months after the Lumiere brothers' cinematograph... I agree with another reviewer that the book might have been boring if written by an engineer, but a good engineer might have been useful as a fact checker.
In the writing style, statements that Galvani had lost his "beloved" wife and "happily" practiced anatomy beg the question of how the author could possibly have known. A fiction writer may know such things about his characters, but a historian doesn't about real people who died 200 years ago. Barbara Tuchman could thrill the reader with history without ever presuming to know the private feelings of the people she wrote about. Why does the author refer to dynamo inventor Gramme as "Monsieur Gramme," when she never uses any such form about anybody else? Is she trying to make him sound like inspector Clouseau?
She also uses different words for the same things for no obvious reason. Referring to the same event as the "War Between the States" and the "Civil War" in the same paragraph, or to New York as "Gotham," while gratuitous, may be harmless to American readers but it is guaranteed to confuse to readers in, say, New Dehli or Kiev who may be fluent in English but not familiar with these idioms.
Rating: 
Summary: A GREAT OVERVIEW OF IT'S SUBJECT
Review: This book is a enjoyable overview and history of it's subject: The early days of the industrialization of electrical power in the United States. While it may not be as "technical" as a electrical engineer may like, it offers sufficient detail for us "armchair" readers who enjoy the history of technology and engineering. I'm sure some important details or individuals are missing or dealt with only briefly, but the book accomplishes what it sets out to do: offer a informative yet entertaining overview of one specific area of American invention and industrialization in the last half of the nineteenth century.
Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Book!
Review: This is a book about an important topic in our lives: electrical power. Although the author discusses early discoveries in electricity, the main focus is on the period from the late 1800s to the early 1900s - a period when great advances were made in the development of large scale electrical power generation, as well as on the giants who led the way. The science is discussed, at least to some degree, as are the economics of the time. Mini biographies of Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla are also presented. The writing is clear and engaging such that the book is difficult to put down. My only disappointment was that, in my opinion, the science and engineering aspects were not discussed enough; I think that an appendix with more scientific details would have complemented the book very well. But despite this minor shortcoming, the book certainly succeeds in giving the reader a flavor of those exciting times. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book!
Review: This is a fairly good book on three pioneers of the electrical revolution: Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse. Only the last was a true industrialist, while the first two were inventors who more or less failed to capture the full value of what they created. The field of battle was was between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC). Jonnes also attempts to evoke the era - one of huge transition, both technological and social/organizational - in which they lived.The best things about this book are in overview and context. I learned about the business environment and practices during the Gilded era, which was indeed extremely interesting and useful for my current project. This is well researched and clearly written. Moreover, what each of these individuals faced - their frustrations, ambitions, motivations, and methods - are also examined in some detail. While I know a lot about Edison from previous research, this was a gold mine of info on his principal competitors, Westinghouse and Tesla, whose technology (AC) won the battle to become the standard of wire-furnsihed electric power. Edison was an incredible inventor, but his obstinancy for sticking to what he created led him to bypass AC for the less workable DC (this is a pattern that led him to many strategic mistakes thru his career). Tesla was an eccentric visionary and loner, who made great discoveries early on only to get mired into megalomanaical schemes during the last decades of his life. Westinghouse was a true "broker of innovation" - finding and using talent with great efficiacy - and in many ways a brilliant pioneer of corporate and industrial organization; he was also a decent man with populist ideals in a time of ruthless exploitation and manipulation. However, this book failed for me on many counts. First, it did not go into enough technological detail for me - I still don't understand the difference between AC and DC from a scientific point of view. Second, I did not get much of a feeling for a story (billed on the cover as a titanic struggle) that was unfolding: instead, the book jumped around and got bogged down in certian details, such as the grizzly chapter on Edison's promotion of an AC-current electric chair (to scare the public) or the maneuvering that preceeded the COlumbian Exposition. Third, and this is a very personal perception, I did not like the way that Jonnes writes. While her book certainly was not as dry or lifeless as so many academic studies tend to be, I felt she was straining to write as eloquently as McCullough or Schama, which I believe is beyond her talent. This criticism may come from writing 101, but she uses too many adjectives. Waves of panic are "ungulating," electicity is "ethereal," etc., each time failing to find "le mot juste." I really don't mean to be a snob about this - she is a better historian than I ever could be - but her writing style irritated me several times on every page. Recommended with these caveats in mind.
Rating:
Summary: a disappointment, but very interesting as well
Review: This is a fairly good book on three pioneers of the electrical revolution: Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse. Only the last was a true industrialist, while the first two were inventors who more or less failed to capture the full value of what they created. The field of battle was was between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC). Jonnes also attempts to evoke the era - one of huge transition, both technological and social/organizational - in which they lived. The best things about this book are in overview and context. I learned about the business environment and practices during the Gilded era, which was indeed extremely interesting and useful for my current project. This is well researched and clearly written. Moreover, what each of these individuals faced - their frustrations, ambitions, motivations, and methods - are also examined in some detail. While I know a lot about Edison from previous research, this was a gold mine of info on his principal competitors, Westinghouse and Tesla, whose technology (AC) won the battle to become the standard of wire-furnsihed electric power. Edison was an incredible inventor, but his obstinancy for sticking to what he created led him to bypass AC for the less workable DC (this is a pattern that led him to many strategic mistakes thru his career). Tesla was an eccentric visionary and loner, who made great discoveries early on only to get mired into megalomanaical schemes during the last decades of his life. Westinghouse was a true "broker of innovation" - finding and using talent with great efficiacy - and in many ways a brilliant pioneer of corporate and industrial organization; he was also a decent man with populist ideals in a time of ruthless exploitation and manipulation. However, this book failed for me on many counts. First, it did not go into enough technological detail for me - I still don't understand the difference between AC and DC from a scientific point of view. Second, I did not get much of a feeling for a story (billed on the cover as a titanic struggle) that was unfolding: instead, the book jumped around and got bogged down in certian details, such as the grizzly chapter on Edison's promotion of an AC-current electric chair (to scare the public) or the maneuvering that preceeded the COlumbian Exposition. Third, and this is a very personal perception, I did not like the way that Jonnes writes. While her book certainly was not as dry or lifeless as so many academic studies tend to be, I felt she was straining to write as eloquently as McCullough or Schama, which I believe is beyond her talent. This criticism may come from writing 101, but she uses too many adjectives. Waves of panic are "ungulating," electicity is "ethereal," etc., each time failing to find "le mot juste." I really don't mean to be a snob about this - she is a better historian than I ever could be - but her writing style irritated me several times on every page. Recommended with these caveats in mind.
Rating:
Summary: Essential History with Relevance for Today
Review: This is a splendidly written book, and is essential history for those who seek to anticipate the future. For almost all of us alive today in the United States, electricity has always been there (even if not always so omnipresent). If we think about a world without electricity at all, it is to wonder what it was like to experience the night with only flickering lamps and candles to push back the shadows. I had never considered, however, what it was like to experience the coming of electricity as a new thing in the world. New brightly burning lights, new quiet motors --- a new power coursing invisibly through thin wires. Over the last dozen decades, an electrical infrastructure swept the country and transformed our lives -- most of our energy consumption is now via electricity. Ms. Jonnes captured the excitement of this transformation at it's very source; the inventors and businessmen who made the future happen. Those of us who have been part of the Internet revolution will recognize many similarities in these two revolutions. All of us should acquaint ourselves with this history of the electrical revolution, because already the seeds of a new electrical infrastructure revolution have sprouted which will again transform our economy. Ms. Jonnes book is an excellent education written in an engaging style. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Essential History with Relevance for Today
Review: This is a splendidly written book, and is essential history for those who seek to anticipate the future. For almost all of us alive today in the United States, electricity has always been there (even if not always so omnipresent). If we think about a world without electricity at all, it is to wonder what it was like to experience the night with only flickering lamps and candles to push back the shadows. I had never considered, however, what it was like to experience the coming of electricity as a new thing in the world. New brightly burning lights, new quiet motors --- a new power coursing invisibly through thin wires. Over the last dozen decades, an electrical infrastructure swept the country and transformed our lives -- most of our energy consumption is now via electricity. Ms. Jonnes captured the excitement of this transformation at it's very source; the inventors and businessmen who made the future happen. Those of us who have been part of the Internet revolution will recognize many similarities in these two revolutions. All of us should acquaint ourselves with this history of the electrical revolution, because already the seeds of a new electrical infrastructure revolution have sprouted which will again transform our economy. Ms. Jonnes book is an excellent education written in an engaging style. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: There's nothing new under the sun...
Review: What does one do when they are on a red-eye flight for six hours and can't sleep? They read! The target of my insomnia for this trip was Empires Of Light - Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, And The Race To Electrify The World by Jill Jonnes. If this is a part of history you haven't ever been exposed to, it's a fascinating read...
Jonnes goes back to the mid-to-late 1800's and covers the story of how Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse transformed society with the power of electricity. Back then, the predominate form of lighting was the gaslight... dirty, smoky, and not very efficient. Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse all had ideas about electricity and how it might be packaged in a form that could illuminate the night and run motors. Edison was a proponent of Direct Current, or DC, power, while Westinghouse was pushing the Alternating Current, or AC, power type. Since we obviously now have an AC power grid worldwide, you can tell who won the war over the long term. But in the beginning, things were far from settled. DC is a much safer power source, but it can not travel very far. As a result, power stations had to be built all over a city to provide the necessary electricity to that area. On the other hand, AC can travel great distances and is much more efficient, but it can be much more dangerous and deadly. It was this safety issue that led to some of the more "memorable" events of the time, like Edison pushing AC power for an electric chair to kill someone, so that AC would be associated in the public mind as dangerous. While Edison and Westinghouse were fighting things out on the lighting side, Tesla was a complete eccentric who wanted to invent the first AC powered motor (when it was thought that it couldn't be done).
Being in the tech industry, what kept standing out to me was how those times were nearly identical to the dot.com era. There are new technologies that are changing the way that people live. Standards are nonexistent, and everyone is fighting to become the king of the new economy. A quote that seemed so appropriate: "For many years the Edison Company contented itself with flooding the country with circulars trying to ridicule the Westinghouse system. One morning it suddenly awoke to find it had a competitor. Now it says that if the contract is given to Westinghouse an injunction will head him off." Remind you of any software companies today?
While the overall writing style may not be as riveting as a techno-thriller, it's good enough to carry the reader back to a time where technology was *truly* changing people's lives. This is a must-read for people who think we are in "unprecedented times", when in reality we are just replaying the past.
|
