Tesla, Richard Munson
Tesla, Richard Munson
37 Rating(s)
List: $29.99 | Sale: $21.00
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Tesla
Inventor of the Modern

Author: Richard Munson

Narrator: Charles Constant

Unabridged: 9 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/19/2018

Synopsis

Nikola Tesla, a Serbian immigrant, invented the radio, the induction motor, the neon lamp, and the remote control. His breakthrough came in alternating current, the basis of the electric grid and long-distance electrical transmission. This pitted him against Thomas Edison's direct current empire, and bitter patent battles ensued. But Tesla's technology was superior, and eventually he prevailed. Unfortunately, he had no business sense and could not capitalize on this success. His most advanced ideas were unrecognized for decades: forty years in the case of the radio patent; longer still for his ideas on laser beam technology.

Tesla's personal life was magnificently bizarre. Strikingly handsome and impeccably dressed, he was germophobic and never shook hands. He required nine napkins when he sat down to dinner. In later years he ate only white food and conversed with the pigeons in Bryant Park. This clear, authoritative, and highly readable biography takes account of all phases of this remarkable life.

About Richard Munson

Richard Munson is an author, businessman, and activist in the field of clean energy and industrial energy efficiency. He directs the Environmental Defense Fund's clean energy efforts in the Midwest. He lives outside Chicago, Illinois.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Nancy on May 30, 2018

4.5 Nikola Tesla has become a Culture Icon known more for his reputation as a kind of magician and rogue inventor, thanks to the movie The Prestige, and as a visionary, his name recognized because of Tesla Motors. And yet few of us understand that everything we take for granted today--the electric gr......more

Goodreads review by Kris on May 31, 2020

I'm glad I picked this biography from W. W. Norton as my first deeper exploration into this genius inventor's life. Tesla was a visionary, far ahead of his time in predicting technology; he basically predicted aerospace engineering, phones, computers, radio, television, robots, artificial intelligen......more

Goodreads review by Scott on December 12, 2018

This was a lot more exciting than I thought it could be. I have read and heard a lot about Tesla over the years, some true, some myth, but I enjoyed this more than two earlier biographies I read awhile ago. It was a very entertaining biography and the pace was just right. It turns Tesla back into a h......more

Goodreads review by Peter on October 30, 2019

"The Current War," the new movie with Benedict Cumberbatch, doesn't do Nikola Tesla justice. This book does, and it's about time. Tesla lived a fascinating life and gave us the technologies that support our modern economy. Very well written biography. Richard Munson's careful research makes the book......more

Goodreads review by Malcolm on November 01, 2019

This book is so much better than "The Current War." That movie barely gives any credit to Nikola Tesla who actually won the current war. This book reads well but has lots of information. It reveals Tesla the individual as well as the inventor. It also offers great perspectives on history in the late......more

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