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Edison: A Life of Invention
by Paul Israel
Available from Amazon
$14.96
|
Features
Paperback: 560 pages
Publisher: Wiley; New Ed edition February 11, 2000
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0471362700
ISBN-13: 978-0471362708
Product Dimensions:
9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
It has been said of Edison that his inventive gifts consisted of 1% genius and 99% hard work. Israel, coauthor of Edison's Electric Light and managing editor of the Thomas Edison Papers (in progress), in effect confirms that assessment. Weighing the competing demands of biographical narrative and technological elucidation, he opts for the latter, showing Edison as tireless experimenter rather than inspired wizard. Israel portrays Edison as an improver of inventions and transformer of concepts into products, someone who applied himself pragmatically to the uses of electricity?from the telegraph and telephone and storage battery to the phonograph, incandescent light and motion picture. Israel shows Edison as a manager of innovation, making the shift from private workshop to corporate research and development with income from royalties. An effective self-publicist, he became in the public mind the central figure of 19th-century invention. He lived, however, into 1931, by which time his brand of empiricism had given way to industrial laboratories on a scale he could not have imagined as a teenage telegrapher in the 1860s. For a flesh-and-blood life one must return to such biographies as Robert Conot's A Streak of Luck (1970) or Neil Baldwin's recent Edison: Inventing the Century. But Israel draws on his subject's notebooks to provide an authoritative look into Edison's working methods, here leavened by enough personal detail to give the achievements shape. When Edison died, the nation extinguished its lights for a minute in tribute. He had not invented either, but he had made electricity work as no one else had. 20 illustrations.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Scientific American
Edison's name is on 1,093 U.S. patents--more than any other person's. It is a measure of his renown that his surname alone suffices for the title of this book. Israel, managing editor of the Rutgers University edition of Edison's papers, has explored thoroughly the five million pages of documents housed at the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange, N.J., and so he is well positioned to discuss the eminent inventor's achievements. That he does with care and clarity. The well-known inventions--the incandescent lightbulb, the phonograph, the kinetoscope for motion pictures, the carbon transmitter for telephones--are all here in detail, and so are the lesser-known ones as well as some Edisonian projects that did not succeed. Israel also paints a clear portrait of the man. One learns, among other things, of Edison's difficult relationships with his children, his indifference to his appearance and his singular notions about diet. (In his last years, when he was suffering from stomach trouble, "he consumed nothing more than a pint of milk every three hours.") Edison may well have been the "Inventor of the age," as he was orotundly described in the Grand Prize that he won at the Universal Exposition of 1878 in Paris, but he was in addition a complex and intriguing human being.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
Reading this book has been an experience for me. I wanted to find out more about the life of one of America's most famous inventors, and this book has helped me along the way, so I give it credit for that. However, I have felt like I am trudging into a mighty windstorm, reaching deep into my soul to plunge each forward step as I slowly turn the pages in this book. There are pockets of enlightenment throughout the book, but it really is a relaying of facts about Edison's life, which is technically what a biography should do, but this book does not come alive in my hands like others have. To be fair, I did accomplish my goal of learning more about this great man. I learned that a lot his inventions were a result of not just great intellect, but of great work ethic and stick-to-it-iveness. Also, one of his greatest contributions was a corporate model for delegating work among his subordinates. The speed of the development of his inventions was the key, as several other inventors were working on similar ideas at the same time. Anyway, I recommend the book as a good introduction to the life of Tom, but I am sure that there is a book out there that will give you the same enlightenment without making you feel as though you've crawled on your hands and knees through the Sahara, with a canteen full of lukewarm water that leaks at a very slow rate.
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Edison: A Life of Invention
by Paul Israel
Available from Amazon
$14.96
|
|
