The personal accounts really undulated from interesting to stone cold boring. I probably would have liked a little more science at the expense of some of the personal stuff.

Good overview

Very interesting, covers electricity from early times to the present. The book has an especially good listing of material for further reading, listed by topics with observations about the book

On Podcasts and Electricity

As we were driving home from piano lessons one day, my mother (with my siblings’ eager consent) decided to play a podcast about the history of light, from candle wax to light bulb fixtures. The podcast cast a spell on us. As we were listening to the acknowledgments, a name of a certain book caught my mother’s ear. This book was afterwards given to me to read, and truly, the book is as interesting as the podcast itself.

Electric Universe, by David Bodanis, is a book on the history of electricity. This book tells of the many inventions that were created using the powers of electricity. Bodanis, a master science writer, explains many concepts in a clear-cut way as he describes this electric history.

Every chapter in Electric Universe reveals a new intriguing and informative fact. I looked forward to every word, and there are not very many books that can make the reader do that! Certainly, before I read Electric Universe I didn’t know that a telegram cable had been spread across the Atlantic Ocean, or that Alexander Graham Bell had mostly been motivated to work so the aurally impaired could communicate too. Now I have a delicious amount of interesting information stored in my head to munch on.

Bodanis has a clear, straightforward style that makes many topics easy to understand. Thanks to this book, I finally understood that electricity should not be represented in the cartoonish little-ball style, but as a wave. I also learned how cocaine and anesthetics work as I read about the effects of sodium ions in nerves, . Because of Bodanis’s transparent style, I understood many things.

Electric Universe is an excellent book because of its lucidity and interesting facts. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn’t the faintest idea about how electricity works, and especially to anyone who likes podcasts about electricity. And if you'd like to see more youth reviewed books, go to my blog, bookshelfexplorer.

Decent introduction to some of the history of electricity, but has some glaring faults. Almost rating it two stars because of them. His explanations of concepts vary from well done to "wow that's a bad way to explain it" but mainly there's an absence of any talk about DC and AC current, it's not mentioned once, nor is Tesla. Not even in passing, or anything on resistors, capacitors... I was surprised that a brief history of electricity wouldn't mention at least the different currents. Also he mentions Sleeping Beauty as a Disney film involving falling asleep because of a poison apple. Come on, his research or editors should have at least caught that error.

David Bodanis is truly great at writing the history of science. Even if I am well familiar with various histories, somehow he grabs my attention immediately, my dopamine neurons start going crazy, and I remained hooked for the entire book. I love the way he tells a history.

The one exception to his exceptional writing is that he wrote an entire book about electricity -- in the universe, in the world, and in the animal body-- without mentioning Tesla!! Edison received his due, as did so many others. How can anyone write a history of the discovery of electricity without discussing Tesla? It could be that awareness of Tesla's contribution was not as understood in 2004, when this book was published, as it is now. regardless of why, any book on electricity that leaves out Tesla cannot receive more than 3 stars.

The rest of the book is 5 stars all the way. ​Beautiful histories of how humans discovered waves, which were all around us but unseen. Bodanis' history of Faraday was exquisite. Volts should be called Faradays and Bodanis will tell you why. I only wish he had given the same treatment to Tesla that he gave to Faraday.

Bodanis examined electricity in the universe as it pulls opposite charged atoms together, creating wonderful reactions. When discussing the electricity in the brain, he begun the section with a beautiful image of stars exploding out the elements that would eventually help each brain mount a response. Excellent writing all around!

Look, isn't electricity important for modern life and interesting. And here are a few anecdotes about it. That's the whole point of this book, so I have just saved you from having to read it. You're welcome.

Overall a very simplified description of how electricity works and the people behind it. some very interesting information about radar and the war efforts. however this book and the analogies it uses are so simplistic and in the case of semiconductors just blatantly wrong and misleading.

Interesting stories and a little bit of help understanding electricity.

This book could have been titled "The Deceptive and Dishonest World of Scientists" or "Intrigue in the Lab".

If you are not that into science and prefer the stories behind the people and the history of discoveries, this is your book! David Bodanis gives us the "National Enquirer" version of electricity by going into the stealing of discoveries, the grandstanding by scientists, the resistance to new ideas, and the "accidental discoveries" that are often more important than organized research.

There are a number of people that are left out in this book. It has been pointed out by others that Tesla but there are many more that Bodanis didn't include. Electrical force was known and used ancient Arabic, Egyptian, and Roman cultures and scientists way before Ben Franklin was credited with discovering it (can you say always credit older, white men). That said, this book does a great job of telling not only what electricity is and why it is so important to us, it also gives a great overview of the stumbling way discoveries happen and how the timing has had a major impact on the history of the human race.

This book doesn't limit itself to manufactured items like light bulbs and computers but also delves into how electricity is used to run animal bodies and how it lets us think and remember. There is a great deal of material covered in this book and the author livens up what could be a dull lecture by interspersing interesting "behind the scenes" information. After the book is "finished", Bodanis includes a number of interesting and lengthy appendixes with even more information - both historic and scientific.

If you are looking for a hard science textbook, this is not the book for you. However, if you like to learn science without falling asleep with the book on your lap, you will definitely find Electric Universe worth reading.

David Bodanis' book wins convincing plaudits from Bill Bryson, The Observer, The Sunday Times and The Economist to name but a few - and for good reason. Electric Universe is a fascinating look at electricity in all its forms, effortlessly mixing biography, science, history and humour.

The book is divided into five sections, chronologically detailing the progress of human understanding from 1830 to the present. First, 'Wires' deals with the discovery of electricity, and the first tentative steps of inventions such as the telegraph. Bodanis takes a fascinating look at the way new forms of electric communication changes the world, making it a smaller, more interconnected place. 'Waves' then looks at the increasingly deeper understanding of the way in which electricity worked, covering topics such as electromagnetic fields. The way in which these waves were then put to use are studied in the 'Wave Machines' section, including fascinating biographies of key players in the invention of radar.

Moving away from the discovery and initial uses of electricity to the more contemporary age, the second-to-last section covers Turing's work on computers during the war and his vision for the future, the realisation of the power of silicon, the invention of the transistor and the path to the modern computer world. And finally, 'The Brain and Beyond' looks at the discovery of and science behind the way in which our bodies work, effortlessly and clearly explaining the way in which we are vast, wet computers, with electric charges controlling everything from our nerves to our memory.

Of all these sections, I found two in particular - 'Wave Machines' and 'The Brain and Beyond' particularly fascinating, though more from personal preference and interest rather than any literary reason. In addition to the invention of radar, the former covers a diverse range of people and experiences, discusses the science behind the technology, and touches on the morality (or otherwise) of the way in which technology was used during the Second World War. The latter, 'The Brain and Beyond', is incredibly thought-provoking, illustrating just how miraculous the human body and its inner workings are.

To find any serious flaw with Bodanis' book is difficult. Only two things sprang out at me, and are the sole reason for my dropping the rating a little. The first is that chapter 6, which looks at Hertz's gradual increase in the understanding of electricity, has a slightly cobbled-together feel about it. Composed of excerpts from his diary, I can see Bodanis' point that his own words easily convey his progress in the field. However, page after page of quotes, cut and pasted with little linkage between excerpts, makes for rather bland and disjointed reading.

The second, more of a niggle than a flaw, is that Bodanis includes an excellent appendix detailing further information on points he makes throughout the book, referenced by page number. While it was interesting to reference back to each page and then read the extra information, some linkage the other way would have been appreciated. While I understand that the appendix was doubtless a solution to excessive footnotes, an indication in the main body of the text when further information was available would have allowed for a more flowing reference between the main body of the literature and the array of facts and references at the back.

As a complete package, however, the book is absolutely excellent. Well written, covering an enormous array of time, inventions, uses of electricity, people, human understanding and technologies, Bodanis has done an outstanding job, well deserving of the Aventis Prize for Science Books which it was awarded. It's few and far between that a book manages to balance simplicity with detail, coherence with complex science, man with machine, and fact with imagination. Absolutely worth a read, I'd recommend without hesitation Electric Universe to anyone who wants a great overview of the history of electricity.

[Written 2008]

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.

Readily readable

Well written with clear explanations of stuff you kind of thought you already knew. Can't say I couldn't put it down. In fact I kept putting it down so I could think about what I'd just read. It's that kind of boo.k