The Power of Light

An original investigation into the social and technological history of solar power

From the days of Archimedes and Leonardo, the earliest efforts to harness the power of the sun have become the stuff of legend.

But it was not until the industrial revolution, with its great demands for fuel, that inventors --like Prometheus carrying fire from Mt. Olympus--began to build machines capable of channeling the sun's rays into usable energy.

In The Power of Light, solar energy expert Frank Kryza re...