The visionary eccentrics and hardboiled businessmen behind television’s inception come to life in this “gripping” (Booklist), “lucid and engrossing” (american Scientist) chronicle of patent races, marketing showdowns, and courtroom battles. Index; photographs.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
From Amazon
Telling the tale of the corporate revolution that forever changed the nature of the individual is no easy task. Authors David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher have hidden their sociohistory between the lines of the exciting story of the race to invent television. Eccentric geniuses John Logie Baird (whose only other invention was stay-dry socks) and teenaged Utah farm boy Philo T. Farnsworth struggled with limited resources to produce the first television systems, but their greatest challenge was coming up against the giant corporations that had nearly infinite money and resources. Pitting these lone romantics against the collective will of RCA, Tube turns a history of science into a thrilling page-turner.
From Publishers Weekly
As the authors say in their preface, "[W]ho invented television? Nobody knows." But the genius of several individuals coalesced into today's modern TV. In this personality-driven book, the authors look at the key players and their contributions: John Logie Bair, the eccentric Scot who went from marketing hemorrhoid cream to making the first TV in Britain; Vladimir Zworykin, the Russian immigrant who blazed the trail for RCA; and Ernst Alexanderson, who led RCA to the promised land but lost out to Zworykin. But the two stars are Philo T. Farnsworth and David Sarnoff. Farnsworth was the boy-genius who first visualized TV as a 14-year-old and invented one of the first totally electronic TVs, only to be defeated by corporate in-fighting. "General" David Sarnoff, a Jewish immigrant on New York City's Lower East Side, rose to become the head of RCA, leading it to the vanguard because of his keen perceptions of both radio and television. David Fisher, a professor of cosmochemistry at the University of Miami, and Marshal Joe Fisher, a freelance writer, offer an engrossing, in-depth look at the history of the medium. Photos not seen by PW. 35,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
To those seeking an introduction to television history, it may initially seem like an accurate book. First impressions can be deceiving.
What TUBE gains in advertising space, it lacks in accuracy. To a reader with sufficient previous background, it will appear to have been written and researched on the quick, and it comes to several misleading conclusions that evolve into outright fabrication. The authors do not seem to know how to get out of corners they carelessly write themselves into. They seem only too willing to make judgements on technologies and events which they clearly have not fully researched. There are simply too many outstanding errors for Tube to be a dependable reference for historians.
Let's hope if Tube has been reprinted, that the Fishers have done more background research, and have fixed the recurring 'boo-boos' that troubled the version I read.
A 2nd edition (with corrections) or even an enclosed 'errata' page is long overdue. Call me cynical, but I strongly suspect that the errors would happily be carried through to further printings, (if this has not occurred already). I do not recognize the new cover, but I expect it is simply a paperback version of the earlier hardcover with no content changes.
This may seem strong, but the more knowledge you amass about TV History from reputable sources, the more frustrated you will become with Tube.
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This fine work has many of the qualities of a suspense novel, and is probably one of the best books of its kind ever written. It is written with a heart, and the reader easily feels what some of its subjects endured in this fascinating tale of the development and evolution of television, and later, color television. After this read, the reader will want to immediately order the equally excellent book about the development of HDTV by Joel Brinkley.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars
9 reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
An accessible history of television technology
May 2 1997
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Tube is easily the most accessible history of television's early years (its "prehistory"), and a good read to boot. The great Zworykin/Farnsworth technology battle is pretty well presented, and the men themselves come alive in the text. Color television's development gets easily the best treatment I've seen anywhere in the non-technical press. However, the final chapter on the future of television was mostly worthless; historians (along with most of the rest of us) do not do well in predicting the future. In a few years that chapter probably will be seen as an embarassment which the rest of the book does not deserve
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cigars all around for a first-rate book
Jan 7 1997
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Lively, intelligent, thoroughly researched, Tube is the best history of its kind available. The grousings of certain Farnsworth zealots notwithstanding, the countrified genius of television finally gets his due in this volume. A great read
5.0 out of 5 stars
Just what I was looking for
Jan 5 2013
By Richard C. Porter
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book has just the right amount of history and just the right amount of detail to keep you interested. I have an electronics background, but some books can still get too deep to be of interest to me. This one is just right. After reading this book you will have an understanding and a hatred of RCA's dishonesty and backstabbing.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 9 reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Humour & Entertainment > Movies > Video > Technical
- Books > Humour & Entertainment > Television > History & Criticism
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Movie Tie-Ins
- Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Telecommunications > Television & Video
- Books > Science & Math > History & Philosophy > History of Technology
- Books > Science & Math > Physics > Applied
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
