Summary
Jill Jonnes recounts the competition between Thomas Edison’s direct-current electrical networks and the alternating-current work of Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. The story follows their struggle to build an electrical industry through invention, finance, and public rivalry, with key events at the Chicago World’s Fair, Niagara Falls, and the first use of the electric chair.
Why read it Our view
Read it to see how technical systems compete through funding, public trust, and the work of building an industry. The rivalry gives founders a way to consider the forces that determine whether a new technology gains lasting use.
Written about
- Thomas EdisonBiography subjectEdison is one of the three central figures in Jonnes’s history of the competition to electrify the world.Source