Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World

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		Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World
		Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, three brilliant and visionary titans of America’s Gilded Age—Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse—battled bitterly as each vied to create a vast and powerful electrical empire. In Empires of Light, historian Jill Jonnes portrays this extraordinary trio and their riveting and ruthless world of cutting-edge science, invention, intrigue, money, death, and hard-eyed Wall Street millionaires. At the heart of the story are Thomas Alva Edison, the nation’s most famous and folksy inventor, creator of the incandescent light bulb and mastermind of the world’s first direct current electrical light networks; the Serbian wizard of invention Nikola Tesla, elegant, highly eccentric, a dreamer who revolutionized the generation and delivery of electricity; and the charismatic George Westinghouse, Pittsburgh inventor and tough corporate entrepreneur, an industrial idealist who in the era of gaslight imagined a world powered by cheap and plentiful electricity and worked heart and soul to create it.

Edison struggled to introduce his radical new direct current (DC) technology into the hurly-burly of New York City as Tesla and Westinghouse challenged his dominance with their alternating current (AC), thus setting the stage for one of the eeriest feuds in American corporate history, the War of the Electric Currents. The battlegrounds: Wall Street, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Niagara Falls, and, finally, the death chamber—Jonnes takes us on the tense walk down a prison hallway and into the sunlit room where William Kemmler, convicted ax murderer, became the first man to die in the electric chair.

Empires of Light is the gripping history of electricity, the “mysterious fluid,” and how the fateful collision of Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed.


From the Hardcover edition.

网友对Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World的评论

没看完，正在看，目前为止感觉一般般啊

I loved this book. As a fan of all three of the men profiled in this book - wait - actually, I wasn't a fan of Westinghouse until I read this book.
If you had to compare Westinghouse to someone in 2016 it would be Jeff Bezos. Westinghouse valued innovation and people above profits. The other two men are equally amazing characters and make this a fascinating read.

Jill Jonnes did an amazing job. The research seems REALLY detailed. And since most of the players are gone, I'm sure she had to read VOLUMES of newspapers and books to get this amount of detail.

It's an amazing chronicle of the early days of how electricity became a part of our everyday lives. What's really amazing is how much Nikola Tesla created to really become the architect of our modern day electrical grid. If you're interested in inventors and inventing, you'll love this book.

As a kid, I knew nothing about Tesla. I lived close to many of the places chronicled in this book (Edison's lab and home were in West Orange, NJ where I was raised) and used to visit the Edison National Historic site often. My grandfather actually worked for Thomas Edison and met the man (actually they called him "the old man") on a few occations.

So as a child, Edison was my hero. As an adult I still admired Edison and his tenacity, but Tesla was really a genius. He saw the universe in a really unique way. That info is VERY clear in this book without any opinion from Jill Jonnes.

I understand there's a movie underway chronicling the events in this book.
Although I'm not sure it's really an adaptation of this book.

I loved it. I was sad when I finished it.

btw....I'm a fine artist and I drew the attached portrait of Tesla....on an iPad.

Unlike a number of readers I am not an electrical engineer. Far from it! I'm one of those "artsy" types. But I loved this book. It tells the stories of three men, all with feet of clay and with huge ambition and desires to better the world through developing electricity. Jonnes' characterizatrions made them come alive, and her depictions of the times, of relationships (or lack of them), and of all the surrounding personages made for a nonfiction book that reads like a well-researched novel. Even her detailed discussion of the technicalities of electrical developments were basically understandable and enlightening. (Pardon the pun!...) Two thumbs up for a fascinating read.
Note--I read this on my Kindle, and as I shared parts with my husband--who is a math/science geek--he eventually had me order him a paper and ink copy which he devoured.

During the time of America's Wild West, there was also a wildness in the civilized East. It wasn't a range war; it was ruthless combat on the frontier of science. Telegraphs and trains compressed time and space, engines and motor gave man super strength, and electricity expanded day into night. These were parlor tricks that burst out of the laboratories to the wonder of a bustling nation. It was near magic, and hardnosed men fought to control these supernatural enterprises.

Jill Jonnes in Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World does an excellent job of helping us understand the energy and competitiveness of the time. The "War of the Electric Currents" was an exciting part of our history that could have been made dull as mud. Jonnes avoids tedious explanations of technology to tell the story through three men: Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse. The supporting cast includes robber barons that provided money and intrigue. It was a Wild East fighting over a vast business frontier without rules, fences, or referees.

In researching my latest book, I read, or seriously scanned several books on Edison and one on Tesla. I picked up the Jonnes' book because I wanted a better understanding of Westinghouse. Jonnes does a good job of presenting all three key players in the "War of the Electric Currents." Empires of Light is especially good if you want a single book that puts this fascinating feud into perspective. She makes these giants human and shows that they had distinct personalities. Empires of Light is a nicely done, balanced history book about a world-shattering period of invention and innovation.

I have an EE degree, so I was naturally interested in the start of my profession. This book did a wonderful job, giving me information on things I didn't know about. Especially on Tesla. I had always heard Marconi invented radio. It turns out he was infringing on patents Tesla held, and Tesla had already developed a multichannel radio to control a toy boat. It turns out Tesla invented the induction motor, and since it operated best at 60 cycles, our power is now 60 cycles. I had no idea that Edison was involved in making better batteries for electric cars. Just a ton of fascinating information. Also interesting is the war between Edison and Westinghouse that eventually led to Edison being kicked out of Edison General Electric and the name being shortened to just General Electric.Although Westinghouse lasted longer, he suffered the same fate of being cut out of his company. Tesla on the other hand, did himself in by using money given to him for a particular purpose for research he was interested in instead.

I love books on history and the advances of man. This book presents the abbreviated biographies of three great inventive pioneers woven together with the story of the use and advancement of electricity. While we take the use of electricity and the many instruments that function because of electricity for granted, this book presents in a well organized fashion the difficulties overcome in its development. From DC to AC. From Arc lighting to the famous incandescent bulbs. Wow, how the developments of these men and their ideas of what electricity could give to the world such a remarkable power harnessed to make man's life a little easier. Tracing the ideas to fruition of these great men, interweaves the capitalist mentality required to make a dream live. There is so much written in such a short book, and yet I found difficulty in putting the book down as it was an enjoyable read.

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