The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution

The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution

by Henry Schlesinger
The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution

The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution

by Henry Schlesinger

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Overview

“Henry Schlesinger is playful and intelligent and obscenely well read.” — Richard Zacks, author of The Pirate Hunter

"Henry Schlesinger’s fascinating and superbly researched history of the battery is the story of civilization as we know it." — Michael Belfiore, author of The Department of Mad Scientists

Henry Schlesinger’s The Battery is the first popular history of the technology that harnessed electricity and powered the greatest scientific and technological advances of our time. If you like Wired Magazine and popular science books, you'll love the "hidden history" of The Battery.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780061442940
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 04/12/2011
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Henry Schlesinger is a journalist and author specializing in science and emerging technologies. He is the coauthor of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda, and lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction History in Real Time vii

1 A World without Science 1

2 The Death of Superstition 10

3 The Tale of the Frog 39

4 Science, Showmanship, and the Voltaic Pile 51

5 Not a Gentleman of Science 69

6 What Hath God Wrought? 97

7 Finally, Something Useful 131

8 Power and Light 141

9 Genius by Design 169

10 Victorian Age of Discovery 176

11 Without Wires 184

12 Mass-Marketing Miracles 198

13 What Will They Think of Next? 213

14 Distance Dies in the Parlor 217

15 The Endless Frontier 225

16 See It! Hear It! Get It! 251

17 Smaller and Smaller 262

18 Always On 270

19 Lab Reports 274

Epilogue Bring on the Future 279

Appendix Those Troublesome Baghdad Batteries 283

Selected Bibliography 289

Index 297

What People are Saying About This

Richard Zacks

Just as a cracker-size battery powers a cell phone for days, so does Schlesigner’s wit enliven an unlikely topic—The History of the ever-shrinking, ever more potent Battery.”

Michael Belfiore

Henry Schlesinger’s fascinating and supurbly researched history of the battery is the story of civilization as we know it. The Battery illuminates in compellingly rich detail the scientists and entrepreneurs responsible for so much of the technology we take for granted today.

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