I'm crazy about this book. Listened to it on the way to California, and then listened to it again with Peter! First of all, it explains electricity in simple terms so I understood it. Second of all, he introduces you to each advance--telegraph, telephone, light bulb, etc., all the way to computers--by acquainting you with the person responsible for the discovery. Finally, when I thought the book was through and I was completely satisfied, he launches into how electricity makes our bodies work! So enLIGHTening, and the Creator's hand is evident throughout.

Easy to read. Overview of discoveries and work in the human history of electricity. Kind of fizzles out at the end. Sometimes tends to make unnecessary judgmental statements about personal lives of the scientists, but does provide a human background to the history of science.

I put it down when i noticed no entry for Tesla in the index.

I listened to this as an audio book.

Seriously, I hated this book, I only listened to it because it kept me from falling asleep while commuting. Actually, the anger I sometimes felt while listening worked pretty effectively for that. This book is intended for someone who has absolutely no understanding of science at all and has never even thought about what electricity might be. In that case, why would they start now? Perhaps I was especially disappointed because I had just listened to Eistein, His Life and Times, which was quite good. That book explained Einstein's admittedly difficult concepts in a way that was comprehensible to non-scientists (I think) without insulting their intelligence. This book simplified electricity and its behavior to such a level that is is not enlightening AT ALL and will make you sound like an idiot if you repeat any of it.

Just for good measure, the reader had an annoying, raspy voice.

Bodanis does an okay job of writing a storybook about the development of electrical technology, but I really felt like the book over-promised and under-delivered. I may have been part of the problem though, because I had really high expectations. I enjoyed the book, but I'm not sure who I would recommend it to...maybe a middle school student writing a report? Three stars because I enjoyed it, but it definitely fell short of my expectations.

David Bodanis writes a great history of how modern man has used electricity. He focuses more on the people behind the science and shows us that scientific pogress doesn't always advance smoothly,but more often does so in fits and starts with a lot of eccentricity and ego driving them. The part about Alan Turing is especially heartbreaking as it makes you think about how the computer era could have come much earlier if not for his unfortunate early death.if you enjoyed this you'd like his Secret Family and James Gleik's Faster.

I still can't believe the great Tesla wasn't mentioned even once.

This could have been a lot better, or at least it wasn’t what I was expecting. Each chapter is another vignette about another inventor or scientist who makes some kind of discovery or innovation to further our use and understanding of electricity itself. It’s very anecdotal and plays into the people and characters involved along the way. Could have been written in a more engaging style, overall it was OK.

5 or so personal portraits of great inventors in the history of electricity.
The ones I remember best are:
- Heinrich Hertz, and his lonely tragic life
- Joseph Smith & Samuel Morse

If you want to learn about electricity and magnetism, read a textbook. That's not what this book is for. Instead, this is a wonderful introduction to some of the people behind the major discoveries and developments involving electricity. You'll learn a little bit about some of the science on a very surface level, but the point of this book is to bring to life the people involved and, that, I think it does very well.

There are always going to be a few key people missing (some more about Tesla would have been nice) but for those Bodanis chose to talk about, he does a phenomenal job. I particularly liked the section on Alexander Graham Bell posed as an adorable love story.

I read this hoping to get some fun, personal anecdotes to add color and humanize the lectures in my electricity and magnetism class, and I definitely got that. Well done, interesting, and worth a read.

Aq

An interesting narrative of electricity's (or, more accurately, electromagnetic waves') history and subsequent societal revolutions. Yet, while Bodanis succeeded to explain physical phenomena at an elementary level, he leaves the reader yearning for a richer description of the underlying quantum physics that facilitated, for example, the development of radar and computers. Likewise, his chapters on neurotransmitters and neurons near the end of the book were poorly explained and lacking in detail. That said, I enjoyed his light-hearted jokes that were peppered throughout the book, and his writing style made for a quick read. He provided numerous examples of the commercialization (telegraph, Bell Labs) and industrialization (Silicon Valley) of academic research.