Very interesting book on the history of our study and understanding of electricity. The author did a very convincing job of explaining how much of our lives is influenced and even governed by the flow of electrons from one place to the next (hence the title). It was a bit sluggish at times, but had enough historical facts and anecdotes to tie in the concepts and keep me interested.

I've been aware lately as I've read several books about the history of some scientific principle, that the history of any topic is really the history of the people involved. Who discovered what, who was jealous of this person, who rigidly held on to their own perceptions, who developed a new technique for this, that, or the other etc. It's helped me to understand that science really is irrelevant to us unless it somehow affects people. The study of science is really the study of people.

A well written and informative book that has changed my understanding of wave theory. This is a good informational book, and I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the interconnectedness of science.

Readable account, surprising but not "shocking"

The focus on the story of electricity here is on the scientists and inventors involved in its development and how electricity has changed our lives. It begins with "Wires" (title of the first part of the book) to "Waves" (Part II) through computers and finally to "The Brain and Beyond" in Part V.

This is not a technical book on how electricity works, instead Bodanis, who is also the author of E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (2000), which I highly recommend, concentrates on how electricity was discovered and how it came to be understood and how it was applied to do useful work. He begins with Joseph Henry who invented the telegraph only to have its value stolen from him by Samuel Morse who knew enough to get a patent. From there Bodanis goes to Alexander Graham Bell who managed to invent the telephone partly to win the hand of his true love, Mabel Hubbard whose social and economic station was at the time much above his. Then comes Thomas Edison, who is not an entirely charming figure, and surprisingly enough was very hard of hearing, but was amazing persistent--which he needed to be to find exactly the right material to burn inside the near vacuum of the light bulb. And then comes J.J. Thomson who discovered the electron.

Once the electron is discovered, the way electricity works seems to be understood, but then along comes electromagnetic waves, invisible force fields that led to radar, radio, television, computers and Global Positioning Systems. Bodanis spends some time with Alan Turing of World War II code-breaking fame who developed the idea of a "Universal Machine" that could calculate step-by-step (almost, I think) anything. Interesting is the development of the idea and usefulness of a semi-conductor.

Bodanis finishes with "wet electricity," the electricity based on sodium ions that works within living beings. There are thirty pages of notes, a Guide to Further Reading, and an index. Bodanis's style is eminently readable with just a touch of the sardonic. He allows the personalities to come to life and he makes the science seem facile.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

informative and enjoyable