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Book Synopsis

Thomas Edison’s greatest invention? His own fame.

At the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as “the Napoleon of invention” and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light and the first motion picture cameras, Edison’s name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels.

But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison’s greatest invention may have been his own celebrity. Edison was certainly a technical genius, but Stross excavates the man from layers of myth-making and separates his true achievements from his almost equally colossal failures. How much credit should Edison receive for the various inventions that have popularly been attribute

The Wizard of Menlo Park How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World

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    A Paperback by Randall E. Stross

    15 in stock

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      View other formats and editions of The Wizard of Menlo Park How Thomas Alva Edison Invented the Modern World by Randall E. Stross

      Publisher: Crown
      Publication Date: 3/25/2008 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9781400047635, 978-1400047635
      ISBN10: 1400047633
      Also in:
      Biography: science, technology and medicine

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Thomas Edison’s greatest invention? His own fame.

      At the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as “the Napoleon of invention” and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light and the first motion picture cameras, Edison’s name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels.

      But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison’s greatest invention may have been his own celebrity. Edison was certainly a technical genius, but Stross excavates the man from layers of myth-making and separates his true achievements from his almost equally colossal failures. How much credit should Edison receive for the various inventions that have popularly been attribute

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