Edison and Company Books

This book would be a fantastic story if it was written TODAY. It's even more incredible that it all happened in 1932-33.

There are so many levels to enjoy in this book ...

* The pure adventure of it all - setting out on a motorcycle (a 750 pound, 6-horsepower monster, no less!) to travel around the world in 1932. It simply is mind-boggling that he pulled it off.

* The observations he makes along the way and how relevant they are even today. His observations of Afghanistan, in particular give insights into what has always been a war-torn country. If Bush & Co. had read this book, maybe we'd have left well enough alone.

* His pure tenacity and luck to get in-and-out of the situations he stumbles into. Being in jail is just part of the gig, and he takes it all in stride.

* The writing itself ... clean, crisp, and engaging. I couldn't put this book down.

This book is fantastic whether or not you ride a motorcycle.

HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Overall, the book is interesting and informative. It gives some great detail about the middle east, India and Asia in general. From a people perspective, I liked the fact that Mr. Fulton goes into some detail about what the people were like and some personalites. I did find however, that in some spots he focused too much on what people thought and not enough on his thoughts and feelings about "where" he was. Toward the end of the book, he rushed. He spent 80% of the time on the Middle east and India, 10% in the rest of Asia, and no time at all anywhere else. Again, overall, it was interesting and informative, but it did not capture my attention like say Jupiters Travels (same genera, by Ted Simon)
rk

this book was a pleasure to read, since I have been to many of the places he has been. It is true and wonderful and I am glad that from now on it is mine.

I could not put this one down. The story is so fantastic that you almost can't believe it happened. To see the world a little as it was 70 years ago was truly a window into the past.

Robert Fulton is a suprizingly good author in that the book flows smoothly and he only talks about what he finds interesting.

I really enjoyed this book; it was too soon over.

I have ridden motorcycles for many years and would liked to have seen more comments on the practical aspects of the trip, even though it was many years ago. I suspect that Mr. Fulton did not keep daily notes but probably wrote down his memories at the conclusion of the trip, thus the detail is not always there.

The portrait of the middle East gives something for the people of today something to think about - basic beliefs and attitudes in that region may not have changed at all. Our expectations may need to be adjusted.

A long trip on a motorcycle is an unforgettable experience for anyone, even today. Four or five days from home, and the resources available there, projects the rider into a state of independence and freedom that I have not found any other way - imagine what it was like for Fulton to be riding across the desert, months from home, no road in some cases, towards the unknown, his life dependent upon his machine continuing to run, and totally on his own.

Every rider should get to read this book - a great treat for the imagination.

Harrison & Davis offer intellectual property (IP) professionals - including IP attorney's seeking to advocate for their client - a better and more effective understanding of how to manage IP as a strategic business asset. Unlike other books on the subject, Edison, and it's sequel, "Einstein in the Boardroom" (2006), offers rare pragmatic advise with evidence-based outcomes from a community of IP-savvy companies on the benefits of becoming proactive in identifying, protecting and leveraging all forms of intellectual capital to address strategic business objectives.

Julie Davis and Suzanne Harrison's book, Edison in the Boardroom, takes readers deep enough into the field of intellectual property management for them to incorporate presented theories into their respective professional disciplines - researcher, attorney, licensing exec, etc. - without the book becoming unwieldy. Excellent balance. This book can become a cornerstone text for any professional involved with intellectual property to direct his or her focus for additional study and to ensure his or her working knowledge of the challenges confronting professionals in other disciplines that together form a corporate intellectual property management program.

Professor Thomas G. Field, Jr., Franklin Pierce Law Center

Few variables are more likely to dictate short- and long-term commercial success than a firm's ability to convert intellectual assets into intellectual property (IP). The smaller the firm, the bigger the need, and the need only grows.
Most companies are careful to avoid IP infringement and are eager to sue direct competitors who do not. Many firms also educate key employees on their roles in perfecting and protecting intangible assets. Fewer give full attention to IP and antecedents that might nevertheless be regarded as assets. For example, those who would not hesitate to monitor and sue infringing competitors may not monitor non-competitors as potential licensees.
To extract the most from intellectual assets, many factors, e.g., legal, technical marketing and sales, must be weighed. Edison in the Boardroom offers important advice to help firms take steps to meet that need. Despite its reference to "assets" in the subtitle, however, most of this book focuses more narrowly - on IP, and on patents specifically.
Davis and Harrison, said to bring "a quarter century of IP consulting accomplishments between them," document that some companies have long engaged in trying to optimize the value of their intellectual assets. The authors also assign companies to a five-level hierarchy based on a range of IP-management strategies. A goldmining metaphor is usefully advanced at one point to describe those levels as: defensive (staking claims), panning (cost control), mining (deeper profit seeking), processing (integration), and sculpting. The heart of the book consists of five chapters that discuss these levels seriatim and offers a host of useful ideas and anecdotes.
The book is generally well-structured. For example, early in each of the five core chapters is a description of what "companies are trying to accomplish" at the corresponding level of IP-management sophistication. At the defensive level, of course, companies have processes for seeking, maintaining and enforcing IP. Yet, in the discussion of second-level companies, said to seek to reduce costs by exercising judgment about what is brought into and kept in their patent portfolios, it becomes clear how much various levels overlap. The first two topics may usefully be segregated for purposes of discussion, but it is hard to imagine any company that can afford, literally, to pursue protection without attempting to balance portfolio goals against concomitant costs. Indeed, one thesis of the second chapter is that no firm can seek the strongest protection for everything of potential patentability, much less seek it in every possible country.
The third chapter diverges considerably. Companies featured there are said to seek, e.g., to extract portfolio value as quickly and cheaply as possible. Several have gone well beyond suing competitors or easily discovered, non-competing infringers. The most aggressive of such firms regard IP departments as profit centers and actively solicit licensees. Their success is sometimes remarkable. As the authors point out, "Worldwide revenues from patent licensing have grown from $15 billion in 1990 to over $100 billion in 2000." Echoing the central theme of another recent book, Davis and Harrison also point out that, "Some experts estimate that companies are sitting on $1 trillion per year in unexploited licensing fees."
Fourth- and fifth-level firms are difficult to distinguish from ones discussed earlier - or from each other. For example, level-four companies are said to seek to integrate "IP awareness and operations throughout all functions of the company." That seems necessary, too, for allegedly less capable compatriots. Further, when level-five firms are described as embedding intellectual assets and their management into the company culture, it is difficult to find divergence.
The last are said to have as additional objectives: (1) staking a claim on the future and (2) encouraging "disruptive technologies." Still, these could easily been collapsed into "Get a Crystal Ball!" Heuristics for meeting them non-serendipitiously are weak.
Consider, for example, the mouse and graphic interface as commercialized on Macintosh computers. Steve Jobs is said to have derived both from the Alto computer developed by Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. While Jobs became a billionaire, "Xerox completely failed to get into the personal computer business, missing one of the biggest business opportunities in history." To avoid repeating such mistakes, Davis and Harrison suggest that companies should "identify ways the corporation can benefit from [ideas outside their business capacity] before moving on." They, not surprisingly, can offer little guidance.
One IP attorney recently stressed the need for his colleagues better to understand the identification, protection and use of intellectual capital "effectively to address strategic corporate objectives." Those for whom this is novel terrrain will find Edison in the Boardroom helpful.
Also, senior IP counsel better acquainted with the topic may find the book useful. Some will face difficulty in convincing those at the same level or higher in the corporate hierarchy of its importance. To the extent that their advocacy of the critical role to be played by IP counsel is perceived as serving selfish aims, the book should help allay suspicions.
For these and other attorneys, the value of Edison in the Boardroom could easily, and vastly, exceed its modest price.

The basic concept of this book is very intriguing: Briefly examine the life and career of Thomas Edison and then suggest direct correlations between his achievements with real-world situations in which various companies are now deriving substantial value from their intellectual capital. The authors also make skillful use of Edison's own recorded thoughts and feelings. Of special interest to me was what he had to say about the creative process. For example, "Men are just beginning to propose questions and find answers, and we may be sure that no matter what question we ask, so long as it is not against the laws of nature, a solution can be found." This what the author refer to as "The Edison Mindset." Edison apparently had almost no concern about a given experiment's "failure" which he continued to view, rather, as non-success to that stage. Too often, senior-level executives become preoccupied with results and neglect the process by which they can be achieved. Among Edison's greatest (and perhaps least appreciated) achievements was the establishment of the first research laboratory in which he and his associates would collaborate on various projects. Edison was a pioneer in recognizing the importance of assembling the best available talent and providing them with sufficient resources as well as a culture wherein those talents could be fully utilized. Davis and Harrison obviously have this point in mind when observing that "benchmarking best practices without any regard for the underlying culture of the firm can be problematic."

NOTE: For those interested in this subject, I highly recommend Organizing Genius in which Bennis and Biederman examine the collaborative efforts of those involved at the Disney studios which produced so many animation classics; at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) which developed the first personal computer; at Apple Computer which then took it to market; at the so-called "War Room" which helped to elect Bill Clinton President in 1992; those active in the so-called "Skunk Works" where so many of Lockheed's greatest designs were formulated; at Black Mountain College which "wasn't simply a place where creative collaboration took place. It was about creative collaboration"; and at Los Alamos (NM) and the University of Chicago where the Manhattan Project eventually produced a new weapon called "the Gadget."

This is an extremely well-organized and well-written book in which Davis and Harrison use the life and career of Edison for guidance to understanding subjects of major importance today such as breakthrough innovation, collaborative effort, the development and management of intellectual property, and effective organizational transformation. They suggest that companies (indeed all organizations) function in one or more of five levels which comprise "the hierarchy of value" for intellectual property, a model created at Andersen's Intellectual Property Management Practice and then at ICMG:

1. Defensive: "If a corporation owns an intellectual asset (such as a great business concept), it can prevent competitors from using the asset."

2. Cost Control: "Companies focus on how to reduce the costs of filing and maintaining their IP portfolios."

3. Profit Center: "Having learned how to control many of their patent-related costs, companies at this level turn their attention to more proactive strategies that can generate millions of dollars of additional revenues while further continuing to trim costs.'

4. Integrated Level: In this level the IP function ceases to focus on self-centered activities and reaches outwardly beyond its own department to serve a greater purpose within the organization as a whole."

5. Visionary Level: "Few companies have reached this level of looking outside the company and into the future. In this level, the IP function, having already become deeply ingrained in the company, takes on the challenge of identifying future trends in the industry and consumer preferences."

After an excellent Introduction, the authors devote a separate chapter to each of the five Levels and then provide a case study of the Dow Chemical Company, followed by three appendices: Mining a Portfolio for Value, Competitive Assessment, and Integrated Performance Reporting. They suggest all manner of similarities and differences between and among these five Levels, in process suggesting also a wealth of strategies and tactics to consider when attempting to achieve the desired results at any of these Levels.

To a greater extent now than at any prior time in human history, with all due respect to major developments such as the light bulb, telephone, automobile, and personal computer, corporations (indeed entire societies) seek "exciting, new, novel, and discontinuous innovations....For centuries, companies have linked ideas and money by embedding their new ideas (legally protected or not) into products to be sold or bartered. Today, however, an exciting new concept is revolutionizing the way companies extract value from their ideas: an idea no longer needs to be embedded into a product or service to create value. Today ideas are licensed, sold, or bartered in their raw state for great value." And they are getting that value through intellectual property management (IPM). Hence the importance of encouraging and supporting "The Edison Mindset."

Here in a single volume, the authors provide a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective program. It remains for decision-makers in any organization now considering or at work on the design of an IPM to select whatever material in the book is most appropriate to their organization's specific needs. One value-added benefit of this book is that Davis and Harrison can assist with that selection process. A point made earlier, however, deserves repeating: "benchmarking best practices without any regard for the underlying culture of the firm can be problematic."

The authors provide an excellent framework for companies to manage their intellectual property - without using too much consultant speak.

They quote examples at different levels of their framework and look at companies who are suceeding at managing and valuing their IP effectively. This is a skill which can only be more and more wanted in the future.

The most interesting takeaway is that most companies are very bad in this field, and there are very few success stories.

Aesock's Travels is a bilingual novel for young adults age 7-10, presenting the same story in both English and Spanish, under one cover. All one has to do is flip the book over to read the other language. Young Benjamin and Olivia embark on an amazing, magical adventure with Aesock, a mysterious creature with an affinity for finding lost socks. The crisp, clean prose is exciting, and provides a simple yet wondrous adventure in this story that is as engaging for adults striving to learn either English or Spanish as a second language as it is for young people.

Chances are you've never thought of your socks as remotely connected to royalty. They're...well...socks. They cover your feet. They keep your shoes from rubbing blisters. That's about it.

Get ready for all previously held notions about socks to disappear once you read Gretchen McMasters' creative tale, Lights, Camera, Edison! For one thing, remember how you "lost" your socks and then months later "found" them? Uh-huh. That's not what happened.

But we're veering off the subject, and the mystery of the disappearing socks will become clear -- though secondary to the story -- once everyone reads this book.

Aesock, the hero of this tale, is the Prince of Static Island. Think sock puppet with glasses. Likely you won't find Static Island on current maps, but don't be concerned. Aesock knows where he's from and what he's about. He comes to the aid of a dejected Benjamin at exactly the right time, when Benjamin feels as if his young life is over because his science project failed in front of the whole class. He brings dejection home with him, dragging it down to the basement laundry room where he can mope alone.

Except he's not alone, which he discovers when a pile of laundry starts talking to him. First he thinks his sister Olivia is playing a trick on him, but when she arrives in the basement, too, the laundry pile keeps talking.

Soon Benjamin and Olivia meet Aesock and before you can say "There's a hole in my sock!" they are off in his time-travel machine (bearing a strong resemblance to a laundry basket). Aesock takes Benjamin and Olivia on a trip backwards, where they meet an important historical figure. One who is missing a sock, by the way.

During their jaunt, which is over almost before they leave (don't try to figure it out), Benjamin sees how key determination is to all big achievements. And McMasters manages to slide in a history lesson.

This clever book, the first in the Aesock's Travels series, is about 160 pages, but divide that by two. You have your choice of reading it in English or Spanish, all in one book.

Not only a fun way to introduce history, but a great way to slide into a discussion about self-doubt. "Do you really want to give up?" Aesock asks.
Delightful and informative. An excellent book for story circle.
Carolyn Harris, MS
School Psychologist

After a failed science project seven-year-old Benjamin Barber retreats to his home's basement. He and his nine year-old sister, Olivia, are taken by surprise when the laundry pile suddenly comes to life.


From Static Island has emerged a sock laden creature with supreme static cling, Aesock. After Benjamin reveals his desire to become someone as important as Thomas Edison, Aesock invites the children for a journey back in time.


They board a ship or hamper in this case. Complete with captain's wheel, colorful sail and more. It doesn't take long before they are on their way, traveling, to meet a young Edison.


Gretchen McMasters has written a wonderful book that children will surely enjoy! Not only is this a great tale of adventure, but teachers English or Spanish will also want to use this book as a learning tool, especially for children with short attention spans. Younger children will adore having this adventurous tale read to them.


Aesock is well written, captivating, unique and its eye-catching cover are sure to be a big hit everywhere!


For other upcoming books in the series or lesson plans visit: aesock.com


Reviewed by Betsie

Subtitled: "The more you know, the more you know you don't know."
Coming across "The Merchant Of Power" by John Wasik, I was intrigued by the title and book jacket, but I half expected this book to be a clever spoof, like a book-bound Zelig. It was hard to believe that one person could have had such an effect on the history of the United States, indeed living a substantial part of his life in New York City, but had been almost erased from history less than a century later. In fact, I Googled Mr. Insull, and found that yes, he did exist, and yes, he was that influential in the modern industrialized America of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.
Insull was the business "brain" behind the eccentric tinkerer, Thomas Edison, who comes across as something of an old fool, and in the New York years, Insull was deeply involved in the Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/AC/DC controversy, and the bitter J.P. Morgan takeover of Edison Electric (which became General Electric). Getting the heck out of Dodge before things got too dicey, he headed west to a primitive outpost on the edge of the American frontier, Chicago. Finally he was able to work his magic without running up against adversaries like Morgan or George Westinghouse; he bought and consolidated several small electric companies that were serving the city and created the complex electric grid that we know today.
Part biography, part history, part science (or, electrical engineering, at least) and part gossip, the book illuminates a forgotten man, and a never-to-be-forgotten period of the American story.

Everyone knows the inspired inventor Thomas Edison. Edison was a classic rumpled genius, driven in his eagerness to invent but sloppy in his other habits. He was devoted to the technical aspects of his gadgets, but he had little head for business or making those gadgets pay. The business of his endeavors was as unkempt as his clothing, but lucky for him, he had a young ally to help get his books in order. Samuel Insull, in contrast to Edison, is barely remembered today, but he had a huge role in making the modern world through the electrical inventions that Edison churned out. He was driven to make electricity pay, and he did so in millions of dollars, using all the dubious financial levers through the 1920's until it all went wrong. In _The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis_ (Palgrave), John F. Wasik, a journalist in business and finance, has told Insull's story, one full of ambition and financial spectacle, and leading to the sort of ruin contemporary readers will recognize in, say, the Enron scandal.

Insull was born in London in 1859. He scrambled to improve himself as ever any Horatio Alger hero did, and won his way to New York as Edison's private secretary. His ability to work right through the night and get by on catnaps ingratiated himself to his new boss. As Insull took a firmer grasp of Edison's technological advances, he centered on one in particular, the distribution of electricity that could power the lights and other inventions that Edison had produced. He went on literally to electrify Chicago, using huge generators never imagined before. He initiated the metering of power and other financial innovations, not all of them strictly on the up and up. He actually fled America when the bust of the Depression came, tooling around Europe to avoid extradition. Eventually, he could not avoid coming back and facing trial for fraud. A brilliant defense expounded on his rags-to-riches life story and made credible the idea that although he had brought down thousands of investors, no one had fallen as low as he had himself, and that his financial machinations had been for the purpose of preserving his stockholders' fortunes, failing merely because everything was failing. He was acquitted, but he remained a useful enemy for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's campaign against "big power".

Insull may be forgotten, but the foresight of his role in the electrification of America deserves recognition. He was a major influence in the arts, too, but not in the way he would have wanted in promoting the Grand Opera that was fashionable for patronage in his day. Insull did promote the dramatic career of his wife, well beyond her years or capacity. Herman Mankiewicz had started a venomous review of one of her performances in New York, got drunk, passed out on his typewriter, and couldn't finish the review. When it came time to write the script of _Citizen Kane_, Mankiewicz included the incident as part of Kane's sad advocacy for his wife's opera career. Insull served physically as well, as one of the models for Kane; Orson Welles handed his makeup man a picture of Insull, with his brush mustache, and wanted to look as much like him as possible. It's quite the legacy, but Wasik's book presents a memorable picture of the original, as well as the technological and social life of Chicago in his times.

This is a rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Sam Insull came to the US with $200, got a job with Thomas Edison. Then he basically designed and set up the electric power grid as we know it today.

Then through a series of misadventures that he couldn't have forseen he was wiped out. He was tried in court because there was at least a hint of fraud. He was found not-guilty on all charges.

Why do we care about such a man -- two reasons:

First, he is the one that made it possible that when we turn on the light switch, the overhead light comes on. This convenience is a major part of the reasons for the advances in the world. Not only light, but medical equipment, tools, motors of all types.

Second, the collapse of his company attracted the attention of the Federal Government. Because of the way his company collapsed the Government passed all kinds of laws forming the Securities and Exchance Commission, requiring quarterly reports of the financial condition of the company and so on.

It's also interesting that this book came out now in the aftermath of all the recent corporate scandals. I guess that there is little that changes in the world.

This is an exact reproduction of every issue of The Edison Phonograph Monthly that was issued to Edison dealers from March 1903 through December 1916 (166 issues). Each issue featured a cylinder release list, with artist, title, and pertinent information about the performer(s) provided. The monthly was written from the point of view of the Edison Company, but there is a lot of information about Company business practices, new research on recording methods, and background information on Edison artists. There is a lot of commentary about Victor and Columbia (Edison's competitors) as well. This is a must have set for the Edison collector, if only for the release lists provided.

Mr. Wendell Moore started to release each volume as a subscription series beginning in January 1976. By October 1989, he finished with the 14th volume, which covers the year 1916. Each volume was limited to 1000 copies. This is the first and only edition to date.

Mr. Moore also published a set of the individual Edison Amberola Monthly bulletins which began in January 1917, and were ended in December 1921. These were not bound into volumes, however. Still, these are worth seeking out.

Con Edison, having the nation's highest utility rates, was defeated in its attempts to deface the environment, at Storm King Mountain, for its own self interest. The Power Brink is a scathing attack on this utility and its attitude, as well as its decisions on expansion. Clean air and lack of visual pollution wins out

First:

How re-affirming it is, is it not, when one comes to the biography of a man like this, and we find out his great afflictions and handicaps, and see the unbelievable heights he arose to in spite of these! Simply Inspiring, for sure.

Of late (last 10 years, roughly) I have been on a great "feeding" of history and historical stuff...I hated it in school, and now, I simply cannot get my fill of ALL things historical, especially of the biographical nature...I have spoken with others, and they tell me the same thing in many cases. What is this, that we, apparently with age, wish to come to know more about those that came before us??? If anyone has ideas or suggestions, I certainly would appreciate their contacting me and letting me know.

I read this book (just finished, actually) in a special reprinted edition from History Book Club, which I bought last winter. I must say that I was simply blown away to actually read all the accomplishments of this Great Great Man, and not just the "verbally-quipped stuff", that of the "legends" and the "stories", but the true, hard-copy, black and white, sweat and toil, frustrating, but to him infinately fascinating and challenging quests to solve "the problem" at hand at any given moment in his long and certainly illustrious career.

And, of course, to see the integrity of the man, also behind the "legend". No crooked, attention-getting theatrics from this down-home, quiet spoken, simple man...by that I do not mean simple minded, but the every-day man that he was. To see the way this man began to plan the invention of the electric light, not with an end-result (the light), but with the planning of the system that would have to deliver the power to it, based on something he knew about first hand (where NOBODY before him had gone, and thus, failed), the trunk-lines of the telegraph, and the delivery system of natural gas for the gas lights that were in use at that time. This, truly, is amazing, breath-taking stuff...a kind of thinking that is truly rarely seen, maybe once in a hundred or two hundred years.

And, later, the phonograph, his many episodes of "losing it all" and "building it up again", the motion picture, how many things he had "invented" or "discovered" while trying to do something else, some, not realizing their unbelievable potential. This book is simply one of the most fascinating reads I have had in a very long time.

I could go on, but that would lead me to telling you the whole book, because it is so great, and that would defeat the purpose of this review. I heartily suggest, if you are interested in "How" and "Why" things are, today, the way they are, and work the way they do, that you check out this great biography, about one of the Chief Reasons for our current world of wonderful, electrical appliances, illumination(s), audio/visual toys, etc. If ever there was a Man who Changed the World, this little deaf man, Edison, certainly was the leader of them All! ~operabruin

In the December 2006 Atlantic magazine, there was a list of the 100 most influential Americans in history. Nine of the top ten were political figures: Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, FDR, Hamilton, Franklin, John Marshall, Martin Luther King (not a politician, but involved with political movements) and Woodrow Wilson. The tenth person, ranked number nine on the list, was Thomas Edison. Reading Matthew Josephson's biography of Edison, you might feel that there is a good argument to raise him even higher. On the other hand, an argument could be made that he should drop a bit too.

In many ways, Edison personified the American dream. With little formal education, little money and a hearing impairment, he was able to become wealthy and one of the most admired people in the country (and throughout the world). He played a pivotal role in modernizing the United States through electronics.

Although it may seem a tautology, Edison proved that to be a good inventor, you need to be inventive. From an early age, he was constantly tinkering and developing new ways to do things. At first, his jobs with telegraph companies led him to create new methods to speed up his work. Eventually, he would move on to other things, most notably the phonograph, the motion picture and most importantly, the light bulb.

To some extent (and this is why some would drop him lower on the Influentials list), it is exaggeration to fully credit Edison with these inventions. Most of his work was done with people working under him. In addition, other people were also developing similar devices, so even if he had not been around, chances are we would still have had these devices in roughly the same era. (Contrast this with political figures who definitely alter the course of history; the U.S. would be a much different place if someone other than Washington was our first president or if someone besides Lincoln had served during the Civil War.)

But such an argument also sells Edison short. First of all, he may have not done all the work himself (in particular, he hated the theoretical side of things), but he provided both the vision and the leadership. With the light bulb - probably his greatest invention - he (unlike his competitors) thought beyond the device itself and saw how it would fit into an electronic infrastructure. Even in the late 1800s, the era of the true solo inventor was over, but Edison knew how to build a team that would do the inventing together.

As Josephson points out, Edison also had his negative points. As a family man, he was lacking, often ignoring his wife and children for long periods of time when he was consumed with his work. He could also be exceedingly stubborn, which would sometimes lead him from seeing the right way of doing things; the best example of this deals with his failure to acknowledge that alternating current was superior to direct current in creating an electric network.

At almost five hundred pages (plus an index), this book provides as much details about Edison's life as almost anyone would require. Josephson is a good, readable biographer who has obvious affection for his subject, but doesn't let this taint his objectivity. Where Edison fits on your own "most influential" list is a matter of opinion, but this book will help you make that an informed opinion.

I felt that this book was somewhat interesting. It was not very difficult to read however, at times it became very boring. It allowed some insight into Edison's professional and personal life. The book also allows for the reader to get great insight into why Edison's projects failed or succeeded. It shows his failures with the DC current and also shows how his family, especially his mother, influenced his adulthood and his experiments. The book also conveys how Edison was able to manipulate the market for electric light bulbs and keep others from using the secrets he invented to make the light bulb.
The book has a novel feel yet is a very easy read and is very interesting. However, the book does become repetitive at some points and irritates the reader. However, overall the book was entertaining and worth reading, if you are interested in Thomas Edison and his inventions. Matthew Josephson gives an accurate description of Edison's life and inventions as well as showing the importance of these creations. The only problem with this book is that it was written over 50 years ago and does not show how today some of the inventions effect today's world.

This is really a fantastic book. It's extremely well-written. From what I've seen, it's by far the best, most readable Edison biography. The author does a very good job of cutting through the legends and rumors to report accurate facts... always in such an inviting manner that it's very hard to close the book and take a break from reading. Buy it, you won't be disappointed. I'd give it six stars if I could.

This was an awesome book! Very well written and keeps you interested. I read it in a week and would recomend it to anyone. Matthew Josephson is an excellent writer who gives a wonderful account of Edison's life and his character.

The life story of Edison is just amazing. The challenges that he had to overcome where incredible. His persistance to keep trying and never give up is one of the many great lessons we can learn from his life that are in this book. Absolutly one of the best biographies I have read. His struggles over electricity and what brought him into partnership with JP Morgan are very interesting. The mistakes that he made are also detailed here so the reader can see the full scope of Edison's life. This book also covers the business aspects of Edison and all of his major inventions.

This book shows the great triumph that one can attain when believing that one can make their dreams a reality with some hard work and persistance.

"Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison And Other Urgent Inquiries into the Odd Nature of Nature" is filled with all the stupid, ridiculous, silly, or `obvious' questions we're too afraid to ask, or feel we should already know the answers to. Best of all, the folks at Outside Magazine tracked down the most obscure of experts to get the answers.

So if you've ever wanted to know precisely why a tongue will stick to cold metal (and what to do about it if it should happen to you), you can find that out in here. If you want to know how goose down is collected, that's in here too. The book debunks common myths, such as the idea that eagles mate in midair and sometimes fall to the ground and die during the act. It explains the exact science behind that distinctive smell in the air when it rains, and the factors that have created the misconception that tornadoes are somehow attracted to trailer parks. Next time someone gives you guff over your male pattern baldness you can point them to the argument in here for why it's actually a sign of virility and fertility.

The editors turn seemingly dull questions into far more entertaining discourses. For example, the question of how high birds can fly becomes a catalogue of the highest KNOWN flights, most of which had rather... sudden... ends.

If you're the kind of person who hasn't given up their sense of wonder at the universe, this is a great book to have around. It makes a great conversation starter, but it's equally fun to just sit down and read for enjoyment's sake.

this book is really good... i found it informative and interesting... i recomend iut to everyone

217 pages of funny answers to weird questions asked about the world, nature and, in general, the universe around us. Like, how many times can a stone skip on water? Is Pluto really a planet? What is foxfire? How do ducks float? Where does the white go when the snow melts? Are blue moons really blue? Why do worms always show up after the rain?
The book comes with an index, so you can look up facts fast, and the intro comes with an e-mail address because 'The Wild File' which the book is based on still lives on the pages of 'Outside' magazine and they still need questions!
Easy to read, funny and with answers anybody can understand. I would suggest this book for anybody, young or old.

Remember when you were a child filled with curiousity and wonder about nature? You asked many questions such as why do ducks float, do people go crazy during the full moon and why does do collect in the morning? All of those were great questions and some of them may or may not have been answered to your satisfaction. Now your children are asking the same questions and what are you going to say?

Never fear, dear friends. Outside Magazine's "The Wild File" has provided us with a book answering those various hard questions that we have about nature. Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison is a compendium of the best of The Wild File column. You are presented with five files dealing with various forms of nature. Each file has a question/answer format and cites the person who asked the question.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Some of the questions sounded stupid but in reality made sense. The answers were informative and hilarious. You would be surprised over the number of experts in such esoteric fields of wildlife. For example, one informant researched the number of pushups that lizards do in their exercise regimine. Yes, there are people who really do that.
What is also great about this book is its brevity and accessibility. You can share it with your children as they ask you the great questions of nature. You can spend time finding those answers to questions you had as a child. This is a delighful read. So go out and find out why lizards do pushups and why llamas spit.

This is one of those books that you read in one page sections. It is basically a collection of interesting questions that the author has answered while working for a magazine. The questions are fun and he gives pretty complete answers. The answers are usually about a page in length so if you want to read something for five minutes this book is perfect. The information is cool, I really enjoyed it. It gives you a lot of responces to questions you often hear.

One of the most well written, highly informative and just plain interesting books I have ever read. Highly recommend.

An interesting book if you are curious about executions. The book has some interesting details about Edison's personal life, but not to much about Westinghouse. Also, the book says very little about Tesla, who's inventions really enabled Westinghouse to overcome Edison's DC power and make AC power todays standard. Still the book is worth while for Edison fans and those who are interested in the history of execution technology.

I should raise a warning flag to start this review: if you are squeamish, or an animal lover, this book might be a bit too much for you. There are several horrific episodes involving detailed descriptions of botched executions, as well as descriptions of electrocution experiments performed on dogs, calves, and horses. Mr. Essig's intent is not to be sensationalistic. He wants to show us that when Thomas Edison said that death by electrocution would be quick and painless, he was engaging in wishful thinking. (At least to start with. After experiments on animals showed that this form of execution was not an exact science- nobody knew, really, what voltage to use or for how long; nor were they sure of how electricity killed - he may have stooped to being disingenuous. Edison thought alternating current was dangerous, plus he didn't like George Westinghouse. Westinghouse kept infringing on Edison's patents. Edison was pushing alternating current for use with the electric chair, to drive home to the public his belief that alternating current was too dangerous for commercial use.) This book works well on many levels. We see Edison trying to get alternating current used with the electric chair, while Westinghouse tries to fight back, via his lawyers, by showing execution via electrocution was messy and unreliable, and hence was "cruel and unusual punishment." The book is also good at describing the more general competition between Edison's direct current and Westinghouse's alternating current. It takes some careful reading, but you get to learn the advantages and disadvantages of both systems at that time, and how elbow grease and creativity were used to overcome some of the problems. Also, considering that this is not really a biography, Mr. Essig gives a pretty well-rounded portrait of Edison. He was pretty eccentric - for example, sleeping under a bench or on the floor of a closet at the Menlo Park laboratory - but he wasn't lacking in social skills. He was charming and witty and he was very good at promoting himself and his inventions. Like all interesting people, he was complex: when Edison's daughter told him she was writing a novel, Edison told her "that in the case of a marriage to put in bucketfulls [sic] of misery. This would make it realistic." However, after Edison's first wife (Mary) died at the age of 29, Edison - the supposed cynic, misogynist, and misogamist - quickly fell under the spell of the 19 year old Mina Miller, and didn't hesitate to marry her. The man who supposedly thought about his work 24 hours a day remarked that while walking through Boston he "got thinking about Mina and came near being run over by a street car." Regarding Edison's wit and sense of humor, the following is just one of many examples contained in the book: Edison bought his daughter Marion a pet parrot, but the bird never learned to speak. Edison complained that the bird had "the taciturnity of a statue, and the dirt producing capacity of a drove of Buffalo." One of the many things I learned from this book was that, contrary to popular belief, Edison never called execution by electricity being "Westinghoused." One of his lawyers came up with the expression for possible use in the public relations war between the two men. To Edison's credit, he rejected using the word as a synonym for electrocution. Other examples of areas this book explores are the work environment at Menlo Park (where the men would go out into the midnight darkness, accompanied by a dog holding a lantern between his teeth, to buy some food and beer to bring back to the workshop); the politics of the time (bribes being paid to either pass a bill to institute execution by electricity rather than hanging, or to kill such a bill); the fallibility of "experts" (who made uneducated guesses on how electrocution caused death, how much current to use, etc.); and the irresponsibility of the newspapers of the time (going from one extreme to the other in admiring or denigrating both Einstein and Westinghouse; calling the electric chair a wonderful and humane invention one moment and an awful example of barbarity the next). If the book has one fault, it is that Mr. Essig uses the battle between Edison and Westinghouse to slip in his personal opposition to capital punishment. I don't feel this falls within the scope of the story, and he should have resisted the urge to use the book as a soapbox. That being said, this is still a very well-written, well-researched, and fascinating book.

While I am not usually drawn to books about technological history, the combination of narrative power and illuminating research made Edison & the Electric Chair a thoroughly engaging read. It reads like a tightly-drawn novel with compelling -- and sometimes repellent -- characters and plot. I couldn't wait to see how the story would unfold.

As someone only marginally familiar with the science and history behind the development of electricity, I found myself fascinated by Essig's cogent explanations both of how electricity works and the myriad dangers and difficulties of implementing direct current as a means of electrification. Essig deftly weaves the complex personalities of the major players (most centrally Edison and Westinghouse) into the escalating debate over direct and alternating current.

As the story of the first electrocution unfolds, Essig broadens the discussion to include not only the ethics of capital punishment and the relative humanity of the electric chair, but also larger implications of industrial competition, the rise of electric companies, and the illuminating of America.

Bolstered by meticulous yet accessible research, Essig clearly lays out the changing attitudes and approaches to capital punishment. As he explores such volatile issues as the shift from public to private execution by the state, the role of capital punishment in the moral education of the citizenry, and the irony of the state's attempts to make execution humane, Essig always gives the reader room to reach her own conclusions.

The greatest strength of this book might lie in its sensitively and lucidly wrought conclusion. Essig bridges the years from the first electrocutions to the present and shows how we are still involved in the same basic debate. While the efficiency and means of execution have changed through the last century, the crux of the debate remains the same: what is the role of the state in creating a machinery for death and should we truly make state executions palatable -- or should we finally recognize the inherent horror of it all? Essig leaves the reader with much to ponder -- and a strong foundation of cultural and scientific history from which to do so.

Today we all take electricity for granted. We pay monthly fees to large utility companies, and whenever we buy an electrical appliance we plug it in and it works. But we never think about the fact that as recently as the late 19th century, electricity in homes and businesses was a rarity. And it wasn't the government or large public companies who were rolling it out to communities across the US, but instead entrepreneurs like Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse competing to develop different types of electrical services and rushing to sign up as many customers as possible to their own companies' proprietary standards.

Perhaps the biggest rivalry in the electrical field was between Edison, who promoted his direct current system, a relatively low voltage system whose electricity could not be transmitted across a broad area without installing additional generators, and Westinghouse, whose alternating current systems allowed very high voltages to be transmitted across very large distances. No safety standards existed for the budding electric industry, so in an attempt to maintain his early business lead, Edison and his colleagues did what they could to publicize the dangers of allowing high voltage alternating current into people's homes and neighborhoods, and the relative safety of direct current.

The story of electricity in itself is a fascinating business story that parallels a lot of what we've seen in the late 20th century with the internet rush and the mad dash to roll out hundreds of ISPs, most of which have fallen by the wayside as saner business models prevail and the industry consolidates. The business ethics at the time leave a lot to be desired, not unlike the business ethics of the late 20th century.

But this engaging first-time author, Mark Essig, doesn't stop with the history of the electrical industry. He overlays the story of capital punishment into the picture. Humanists in the 19th century were debating whether the various methods used for capital punishment were humane. The use of electricity was raised as a possible painless alternative to hangings and other "barbaric" methods of killing criminals. Ironically, Edison promoted his rival Westinghouse's alternating current system as the perfect solution to the capital punishment dilemma, by stating that its dangerous system would instantly kill any criminals, not to mention thousands of regular consumers who might accidentally get in its way.

This book was a truly terrific mix of history and anecdotes about a very interesting period in history that still impacts us today and that has many parallels in modern day business. And while the book doesn't take sides on the capital punishment debate, it certainly raises a lot of interesting issues and is certain to cause a lot of discussion in that area as well.

I strongly recommend it.

book was great, and the shipper sent it quickly. I would recommend the book and the store where I bought it.

This book is a fascinating memoir of an engineer who worked on the SoCal Edison Big Creek project. It details the creation of Shaver, Huntington and Florence Lakes as well as the Big Creek tunnel system. Nice photos as well