AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War by McNichol, Tom

AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780787982676)

Vendor: Tom McNichol
Product type: Books
Format: Hardcover
$31.00
$31.00
$31.00
Subtotal: $31.00
AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War by McNichol, Tom

AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War

$31.00
AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War by McNichol, Tom

AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War

$31.00
Format: Hardcover
Description
Description
x
AC/DC tells the little-known story of how Thomas Edison wrongly bet in the fierce war between supporters of alternating current and direct current. The savagery of this electrical battle can hardly be imagined today. The showdown between AC and DC began as a rather straightforward conflict between technical standards, a battle of competing methods to deliver essentially the same product, electricity. But the skirmish soon metastasized into something bigger and darker. In the AC/DC battle, the worst aspects of human nature somehow got caught up in the wires; a silent, deadly flow of arrogance, vanity, and cruelty. Following the path of least resistance, the war of currents soon settled around that most primal of human emotions: fear. AC/DC serves as an object lesson in bad business strategy and poor decision making. Edison's inability to see his mistake was a key factor in his loss of control over the ?operating system? for his future inventions?not to mention the company he founded, General Electric.

Author: Tom McNichol
ISBN-10: 0787982679
ISBN-13: 9780787982676
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Language: English
Published: 09/01/2006
Pages: 208
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 9.28h x 6.32w x 0.87d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/17/2006 pg. 152
Discover 10/01/2006 pg. 70
By Tom McNichol
By Tom McNichol
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TOM MCNICHOL is a contributing editor for Wired magazine. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Washington Post, and the Guardian. His radio commentaries and satires have aired on NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Marketplace. He's the author of Barking at Prozac (Crown Publishing, 1997), and his work appears in the anthology Afterwords: Stories and Reports from 9/11 and Beyond (Washington Square Press, 2002).

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