This was a fun, albeit brief, trip through the history of our present understanding of electricity. I would not suggest this for anyone that is looking for the meat and potatoes of understanding electricity, but more for someone that would like to understand more about the people that helped create our modern understanding and use of it.

All in all it was an entertaining read and I would suggest it.

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.

You could probably find a better history of the subject than this one, although it is a very quick read and provides some interesting information. The story of how Alexander Graham Bell came to invent the telephone really is wonderful. The experiments of Heinrich Hertz are certainly worth reading about. The story of James Watson Watt inventing the radar during WWII is fascinating, and Bodanis gets credit for including a passage about the bombing of Dresden (see Slaughterhouse Five) in order to show the dark side of the technological progress his book is often championing. All in all, the book kind of barrels through a history that has so many fascinating detours it deserves a more epic treatment.

informative and enjoyable

ενδιαφέρον αλλά όχι τόσο καλό όσο θα περίμενα... δεν είναι ακριβώς η ιστορία του ηλεκτρισμού, ή της ηλεκτρονικής ή των υπολογιστών... είναι κάτι ενδιάμεσο... οπότε λέει λίγα για πολλά θέματα...

This book begins interestingly enough. It is well written and not overly scientific. Bodanis starts with a chapter on wires which sets the tone of the entire book. Unfortunately, his discussion on the discovery of electricity is filled with fictional details. Yet, after his limited discussion of wires he moves on to waves giving the reader a look at Faraday’s postulates. This discussion ends when the author declares that Faraday is misunderstood but later got revenge. Much information was given about the men who believed that there were “waves” or a mysterious force but no technical insight was provided.

When the discussion turned to radar waves, the focus of the book also changed and became more like a war story. One which quickly lost my interest. I think he many have done a better job to focus the entire book on how electricity made us warriors or something like the hidden connection between war and electricity. He handled the subject well, but served up a big bowl of poop to those looking to learn about electricity.

If you expected an introduction to electricity this is not the book. What you will find instead is a fictional account of the history of electricity, with emphasis on WWII. I cannot recommend this book for learning about electricity. Perhaps however, war enthusiast may find this book of some interest.

This book certainly helped me understand the physics of electricity while providing a good historical account on the topic. Nevertheless, I believe the author should have mentioned some content on Nikola Tesla, and more on Mr. Franklin, Mr. Ohm, Mr. Amp, and Mr. Watt. Just one simple observation: In boolean algebra, the "+" (plus sign) is used to represent an "OR" operation. Therefore, T + F = T (or 1 + 0 = 1) as opposed to F (as described in the book).

Fun introduction to the history of electricity.

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

That the contribution of Tesla was left out was a startling and important omission and made a good book, at times an engrossing book, just ok. That was not the only issue where credibility of the writer was in question. I looked up Hertz and the cause of his tragic early death was most certainly not as it was alluded to/speculated on in the book.

2 1/2 *

The engineering geek within was thrilled. Despite having spent a large portion of my professional carrier on the subject, this book helped me understand a few new things about electricity. More specifically, how our bodies work. The rest, was just pure physics fun. This is not a book for everyone. Physics students or those who love the quantitative side of nature must read it.

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”