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The Electric War
- Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Light the World
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the mid- to late-19th century, a burgeoning science called electricity promised to shine new light on a rousing nation. Inventive and ambitious minds were hard at work. Soon that spark was fanned, and a fiery war was under way to be the first to light - and run - the world with electricity.
Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of direct current (DC), engaged in a brutal battle with Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, the inventors of alternating current (AC). There would be no ties in this race - only a winner and a loser - and the prize was a nationwide monopoly in electric current.
Brimming with action, suspense, and rich historical information, this rousing account reveals the true story behind one of the world's defining scientific competitions.
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Here is history that reads like fiction: the riveting story of two founding fathers of American industry, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers' strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Author Les Standiford begins at the bitter end, when the dying Carnegie proposes a final meeting after two decades of separation. Frick's reply: "Tell him that I'll meet him in hell."
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an extended journalistic tour
- By D. Littman on 06-08-05
By: Les Standiford
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Tesla vs Edison
- A Captivating Guide to the War of the Currents and the Life of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Duke Holm
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Human history has seen many surprising and profound turning points. The ways that humans learned to use raw materials to create activity and resources set the stage for the most compelling and life-altering phase of the modern era, the Industrial Revolution. Born during this time on different continents but connected by similar interests, two men indelibly marked their generation and those that followed with their genius and foresight. This audiobook covers the war of currents and the individual lives of Tesla and Edison.
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Arduous
- By Hasbro on 10-22-18
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Higher
- A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City
- By: Neal Bascomb
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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This riveting, true account of the 1929 race to build New York City's tallest skyscraper evokes the glory of an exciting time long past.
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Outstanding Audio Book!!!
- By Tim on 11-16-05
By: Neal Bascomb
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The Great Bridge
- The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 27 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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This monumental book tells the enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible.
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An Historian and not a Novelist
- By Tim on 06-01-12
By: David McCullough
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Thinking Small
- The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagon Beetle
- By: Andrea Hiott
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Sometimes achieving big things requires the ability to think small. This simple concept was the driving force that propelled the Volkswagen Beetle to become an avatar of American-style freedom, a household brand, and a global icon. The VW Bug inspired the ad men of Madison Avenue, beguiled Woodstock Nation, and has recently been re-imagined for the hipster generation. And while today it is surely one of the most recognizable cars in the world, few of us know the compelling details of this car’s story.
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book is a history lesson
- By Michael miller on 10-02-12
By: Andrea Hiott
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The Path Between the Seas
- The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 31 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The Path Between the Seas tells the story of the men and women who fought against all odds to fulfill the 400-year-old dream of constructing an aquatic passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It is a story of astonishing engineering feats, tremendous medical accomplishments, political power plays, heroic successes, and tragic failures. McCullough expertly weaves the many strands of this momentous event into a captivating tale.
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No Stone Unturned
- By Tim on 06-25-13
By: David McCullough
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To Conquer the Air
- The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight
- By: James Tobin
- Narrated by: Boyd Gaines
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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To Conquer the Air is a hero's tale of overcoming obstacles within and without that plumbs the depths of creativity and character. With a historian's accuracy and a novelist's eye, Tobin has captured the interplay of remarkable personalities at an extraordinary moment in our history. In the centennial year of human flight, To Conquer the Air is itself a heroic achievement.
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A great story
- By Jere on 05-30-03
By: James Tobin
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The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
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Important story of this secret city
- By CBlox on 11-14-13
By: Denise Kiernan
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The Victorian Internet
- The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers
- By: Tom Standage
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the Internet in numerous ways.
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Very nice audiobook
- By David on 05-23-16
By: Tom Standage
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Sellout
- How Washington Gave Away America's Technological Soul, and One Man's Fight to Bring It Home
- By: Victoria Bruce
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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American technological prowess used to be unrivaled. But because of globalization, and with the blessing of the US government, once proprietary materials, components, and technologies are increasingly commercialized outside the United States. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in China's monopoly of rare earth elements - materials that are essential for nearly all modern consumer goods, gadgets, and weapons systems.
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Uncovering unsung heroes of modern America
- By Ben DeNardo on 08-24-17
By: Victoria Bruce
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Tuxedo Park
- A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
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Fantastic book, weak technical execution
- By Paul on 10-13-18
By: Jennet Conant
What listeners say about The Electric War
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- R W
- 07-14-19
Engaging and fascinating story
Excellent, fascinating history on the beginning of electricity, focusing on Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse. Engaging, well written story with superb narration bringing it to life. I learned a lot without ever being bored or overwhelmed by the information. Enjoyed it thoroughly.
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- Amazon Fan
- 05-09-21
Inspiration and instructional on many fronts
Book outline:
Published in 2019, the author Mike Winchell presents a marvelously granular account of the brutality American investors and innovators inflicted on their competitors to gain prominence and dominate the wide-open frontiers ushered in by new technologies like electricity. In this war of the titans, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse, Edison inflicts upon the young Serbian immigrant, Nikola Tesla, a brilliant engineer who came to work for Edison, a powerful and sustained attack to derail Tesla’s innovations from becoming the standard for distributing electric current. Tesla's superior innovations prevail and win the war to wire the world with the help of his honest business companion George Westinghouse who shields and assists Tesla in ushering in the age of alternative current (AC) to power America and subsequently the world.
As the author covers the three most influential architects of the electric war to wire America and set the standard for the rest of the world, he reveals the inner nature of each of these three luminaries through their personalities and the events and fights that lead to the final decision to wire America using alternate current, a Tesla innovation and rejecting direct current, an Edison discovery. This is a gripping journey told skillfully and in detail by the author.
What's the core message?
The core message is about human frailties even among geniuses, and about the triumph of right judgments even in the fog of confusion. Thomas Edison, the wonder-child of innovation had flawed ethics. Nikola Tesla was a genius engineer but was socially awkward in real life. George Westinghouse by contrast was a brilliant innovator but he also held up high morals in his business dealings. The author shows that the genius need not come from formal schooling or college always. Neither Edison nor Westinghouse attended college, yet both were prolific innovators of critical advances. However, each of them like successful innovators had a firm grasp of their technological excellence from years of tinkering, apprenticing, experimenting, and practicing solving problems. In the making of an innovator, there is no replacement for work that lines up with passion, curiosity, and experience.
How do these concepts compare with points raised in other books?
Other books that cover innovators often examine both the technical and personal sides of the innovators. In much of the information published about Edison, the books do legitimately, justifiably, and admirably account for Thomas Edison’s genius for invention. Simultaneously, they also acknowledge his breach of ethics and the brutal and persistent attacks on honest competitors. In particular, they give accounts of Edison’s unjust publicity campaigns against Tesla's superior alternate current system to distribute electricity to stop it from becoming the standard. Similarly, Tesla is shown as an awkward but genius innovator who gets the flashes of inspiration for his innovations in this mind and goes on to perfecting them without the need to draw up detailed plans. They show that the awkwardness in communicating with others stops Tesla from benefiting from his engineering and technological genius. He is seen as a loaner, only able don’t muster up fleeting moments of masterful public discourse. By contrast, Edison is a master of public performances to present his breakthroughs. Fortunately, Tesla's advisers prepare him well for the few pivotal times when this performance is key to the success of their joint initiatives that mark the winning of public recognition over the doubts created by Edison's campaigns. George Westinghouse is the shield and rail track that paves the way for the Tesla AC system to power the world. Westinghouse is a master of perfection in the organization, planning, and executing of a plan. In a world of high-stakes wins and losses and questionable ethics, Westinghouse is a voice of trust. His ethics and values shine in the way he takes care of his workforce. It was George Westinghouse who initially started giving Saturdays off to his workforce so that they could have Saturday and Sunday to spend with their families.
What the book does well.
This book is a dramatic, relevant, and insightful story of the titans of electric current, their evolution from childhood to adult geniuses, and the brutality of business success.
What could have made this book better?
The genius of the story is about the besting of Tesla's AC over Addison’s DC electrical transmission system. Tesla's superior system won even with Edison’s constant, cunning, and unfounded publicity campaign’s falsely attributing dangers to the AC system. Two pivotal decisions settled and sealed the AC system's superiority. The powering of the 1893 Worlds Faire in Chicago, and the powering up Niagara Falls. While the author does an exceptionally commendable job telling the story, he stops short of drawing the most meaningful lesson of the story: the genius of America resides in rising above unfair personal attacks in choosing the most useful technology based on merit. Another aspect that could help us understand the three main characters would have been the personal lives, mentors, and influences that shaped these men in their adult lives.
Who would benefit from reading this book?
All people who influence the lives and futures of young people should also read this book: parents, teachers, and leaders. As well, those who aspire to innovate beyond just excelling should read this book.
This book contains lessons about excellence, persistence, loyalty, bullying, fairness/unfairness, relationship maturity, and collaboration. It can be a medium of discussion to teach youth how to deal with ruthless competitiveness when the prizes for winning are wealth, celebrity, and dominance.
What I got from the book
Innovation is a state of mind. It is embedded in peoples' thinking. Innovators don’t need to have formal education. They’re problem solvers. Edison had no formal schooling, neither did Westinghouse have a college education. Both were experts in their innovative fields and captains of industry. They got there by learning, doing, and improving. Further, they harvested the knowledge of their teams and collaborated with necessary collaborators in advancing their work.
This awesome book reinforces that oftentimes even innovative genius heroes like Edison have a darker side of human frailties and the technical genius of a Tesla does not guarantee a life of prosperity for those who lack likeability and that a good person like George Westinghouse rises above flawed ethics to right the wrongs. Still, in the totality of outcomes that impacts the masses, those who are given the responsibility of making choices, make the right decision. Much is made of Tesla dying alone and poor. This would most likely not have happened if Westinghouse were alive when Tesla faced financial hardship.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-30-23
Really a fun read!
Very well written. Covers a lot of information in this 5hr audio book. Learned some things about Tesla that I was unaware of. Didn't realize their were wireless light bulbs at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair which was covered very well in the book. I recommend this to any history buff interested in the 1880's technology revolution.
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- Amanda McCoy
- 07-17-19
Very well written!
This story was very well written and Greg Tremblay did a great job, as always, narrating. I love the details of each inventor's lives and learning of their personal journeys. This was a great telling of the history of the beginning of electricity. Very informative but not overwhelming as some tells of history tend to be. A great listen!
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