Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity

What? No Tesla?:
For the critical thinker who studies the history of science or history in general it is often most instructive what an author leaves out. Somehow Bodanis managed to tell the "true" story of electricity without mentioning Tesla once. WTF?

Shockingly Common:
You won't learn much about electricity by reading this book. Oh, there is the odd, interesting snippet here and there, but by and large the book is mostly a recounting of the lives of the British wing of electrical research over the past several hundred years. Missing is Benjamin Franklin. Missing is Nikola Tesla. The story is grossly incomplete. Bodanis' style is a little too cutesy, a little too formulaic. His analogies are sophomoric: "...these silicon rocks can shift electric currents through in one direction or another, and the rock itself doesn't have to move...The rock can simply sit there, Buddha-like..." And the construction of the book is odd, with five sections covering electrical properties from "Wires" to "Waves" and so on, each told with mini, mini biographies of some of the scientists, researchers, and inventors involved. Sometimes the chapters build upon one another, demonstrating a curve of learning across the decades, but then there will be a complete disconnect: The chapter on Heinrich Hertz is recounted completely with excerpts from Hertz' diaries--interesting if placed in context, but this chapter reads like a plaster patch placed in the middle of the book. Toward the end of the book an addendum, a chapter entitled "What Happened Next" follows the lives of some of the historical people recounted in the book after their great discoveries were made. Joseph Henry, it seems, became a friend of Abraham Lincoln, and died in 1878 wishing he had taken out more patents. Another ending chapter, "Mr. Amp, Mr. Volt, and Mr. Watt"...oops, Bodanis forgot to explain the basics during the course of the narrative--just stick it in here. And then on to the "Notes", wherein lies much useful information that should have been incorporated into the earlier chapters. As a hodgepodge of information about electricity, "Electric Universe" could serve as a reasonable resource for primary or secondary school curricula. But in truth, this same information is readily available on Wikipedia if one trusts that source, or better yet, within a good, bound set of encyclopedias.

Ambitious Title for a Lightweight Book with some Interesting Facts:
The reader should understand that this author picked a huge subject and out of that book he follows a few interesting sidelights. The book's contents is like a rock skimming across the surface of a lake, Where the rock hits, there is an interesting story, but do I feel like I know about the lake? This author has an interesting style, his E=MC2 book dealt with a narrow subject (an equation). This book is a fast read with interesting facts, but of course it can not cover the scope of the title

Yet another book that proves any subject can be made interesting:
Electric Universe is one of those science books full of anecdotal details and the little stories behind the big stories. The book covers some of the big discoveries and inventions in the field of electricity. Lightbulbs, telephones and radar are among the big ideas that get mentioned. The subtitle is meant more as a play on words than anything else, as there are no real "shocking" stories here, just a lot of interesting facts that make the book part science lesson and part history lesson in a format that is accessible even for those with no background or interest in science. Reading (or listening as the case may be) to a book like this, one gets the feeling that one could write a nonfiction story on just about anything and make it interesting. After all, there is always a story of some sort if you are willing to dig. Whether it's a book like The Meaning of Everything about the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary or Salt about, well, salt successful books have been written on subjects that don't at first seem interesting. I'm waiting for Whirr: The Story of the Electric Can Opener and From Corncobs to Quilted Northerm: The Story of Toilet Paper. Hmm, perhaps I should be writing book proposals instead of book reviews.

Good, but not great...:
I found Electric Universe interesting, but lacking in certain respects. Granted, I listened to the abridged audio, CD version of this book, and my background is in Electrical Engineering, so I'll try to not to judge harshly because it was a good book. I would certainly recommend this to anyone new to the history and principles of electricity and electronics. It is a good starting point, in that it's very comprehensive, meaning it covers most of the big ideas and important people and puts these into a historical perspective that anyone can easily follow. A little more detail and focus would have been nice at times, but again, maybe that's just me. I'm a little disappointed my favorite EE wasn't mentioned in the book, Nikola Tesla, but I should expect that by now (forever an underrated geniuses). With that said, I'd certainly recommend Electric Universe, and I'm certainly glad I experienced it, but it probably won't crack my top ten anytime soon. Coolest parts of the book, Faraday, Turing, and finally, an accurate portrayal of Edison.