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AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War
Tom McNichol
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Description for AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War
Hardcover. This is the story of how Thomas Edison bet wrong in the fierce war between supporters of alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC). The savagery of this electrical battle can be hardly imagined today. AC/DC is an object lesson in bad business strategy and poor decision making. Num Pages: 208 pages, , black & white illustrations. BIC Classification: 1KBB; RNF. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 161 x 238 x 19. Weight in Grams: 478.
AC/DC tells the little-known story of how Thomas Edison wrongly bet in the fierce war between supporters of alternating current and direct current. The savagery of this electrical battle can hardly be imagined today. The showdown between AC and DC began as a rather straightforward conflict between technical standards, a battle of competing methods to deliver essentially the same product, electricity. But the skirmish soon metastasized into something bigger and darker. In the AC/DC battle, the worst aspects of human nature somehow got caught up in the wires; a silent, deadly flow of arrogance, vanity, and cruelty. Following the path of least resistance, the war of currents soon settled around that most primal of human emotions: fear. AC/DC serves as an object lesson in bad business strategy and poor decision making. Edison's inability to see his mistake was a key factor in his loss of control over the ?operating system? for his future inventions?not to mention the company he founded, General Electric.
Product Details
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Inc United States
Number of pages
208
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2006
Condition
New
Weight
477g
Number of Pages
208
Place of Publication
New York, United States
ISBN
9780787982676
SKU
V9780787982676
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-50
About Tom McNichol
TOM MCNICHOL is a contributing editor for Wired magazine. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Washington Post, and the Guardian. His radio commentaries and satires have aired on NPR’s All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Marketplace. He’s the author of Barking at Prozac (Crown Publishing, 1997), and his work appears in the anthology Afterwords: Stories and Reports from 9/11 and Beyond (Washington Square Press, 2002).
Reviews for AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War
A little more than 100 years ago, two titans of industry faced off in one of the most vicious battles the marketplace had ever seen. On one side, Thomas Edison, inventor extraordinaire, the creator of the phonograph and the electric light; on the other, George Westinghouse, tycoon and titan, backing the mysterious eastern European inventor Nikola Tesla. They fought over the very nature of the electrical system in America: would it be built on alternating current (as Westinghouse proposed), or direct currentà la Edison- Though a battle over electrical standards sounds dry, this tale is anything but. McNichol's solid if brief survey of this relatively unknown moment in the history of technology ranges from macabre electrocutions of hapless animals (and eventually prison inmates) as demonstrations of the "Death Current" to the gleaming "electrical wonderland" of the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. Though the author focuses on when it's wise to fight a standards battle and when to give in, some might wish that he had another 200 pages in which to flesh out the story. His book tantalizingly scratches the surface of Edison's ingenuity and force of will, Westinghouse's shrewd business sense, and most of all the sheer eccentricity of Nikola Tesla.(Sept.) (Publishers Weekly, July 17, 2006)