Empires of Light Empires of Light

Empires of Light

Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World

    • 4.0 • 45 Ratings
    • $14.99
    • $14.99

Publisher Description

The gripping history of electricity and how the fateful collision of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse left the world utterly transformed.

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.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2003
August 19
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
432
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
11
MB

Customer Reviews

AlyTheH3dg3hog ,

Very good

I got interested in the topic of Westinghouse and Edison after seeing the movie The Current War. I thought this book was really good for explaining some of the context of the events of the movie, as well as expanding on the actual events of the World’s Fair, Electric Chair, and Niagra Falls Power Company.

rzpitt ,

Interesting look

We hear a lot about Edison when it comes to electricity - but maybe not enough about his more obsessive and icky side. This book is great at showing the huge contributions Tesla and Westinghouse made to modern electricity. It also brings the cult of Edison worship down to Earth. Good read.

Jay and Silent Me ,

Doesnt work

I want my money back

More Books Like This

The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures
2022
City in the Sky City in the Sky
2014
Crosley Crosley
2008
The Devil in the White City The Devil in the White City
2004
The Making of the Atomic Bomb The Making of the Atomic Bomb
2012
The Great Bridge The Great Bridge
1972

More Books by Jill Jonnes

Eiffel's Tower Eiffel's Tower
2009
Conquering Gotham Conquering Gotham
2007
Urban Forests Urban Forests
2016
South Bronx Rising South Bronx Rising
2022
Eiffel's Tower for Young People Eiffel's Tower for Young People
2019
South Bronx Rising South Bronx Rising
2022

Customers Also Bought

The Big Roads The Big Roads
2011
The Chip The Chip
2001
The History of Rome in 12 Buildings The History of Rome in 12 Buildings
2018
The Americans: The Democratic Experience The Americans: The Democratic Experience
1974
Electric Universe Electric Universe
2005
Genius of the People Genius of the People
2016