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

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 m...