Showing posts with label Thomas Edison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas Edison. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

February Book of the Month: Natural Power by Rock Brynner

We are very excited to present the newest addition to our Cosimo Books imprint, our February Book of the Month, Natural Power by Rock Brynner!

The late Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, once said: "You almost never hear about the New York Power Authority, but you should. It would do us all a lot of good: you can see government at its very best."

Natural Power: The New York Power Authority's Origins and Path to Clean Energy tells the story of the history, mission, and values of the Power Authority of the State of New York. Beginning with the birth of generated electricity in New York State, Natural Power emphasizes the role of inventors like Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse; investors like J. P. Morgan; and government figures like Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower played in helping to spread electricity from a luxury to a necessity in America.

At its core, the Power Authority played an essential role in establishing public power over the private sector and greatly influenced the development of power from natural resources. It created affordable, sustainable alternatives for citizens across the state with the construction of the Niagara Falls and St. Lawrence River power plants, and provided a template for the rest of the country to establish public power services. Today, this essential public service provides almost a quarter of New York State's power, dedicates much research and development to environmentally-friendly power sources, and consistently leads the vanguard of utilities in sustainability and modernization in the 21st century.

Natural Power is a fascinating read for readers, historians, environmentalists, journalists, and policymakers interested in the birth of electrification, the founding of the New York Power Authority, its role as a public entity and the importance of clean energy when the threats of climate change are obvious to New Yorkers.

For more information, please visit: naturalpowergallery.com or see our press release.

About the Author Rock Brynner is a writer and historian who lives in Pawling, New York. He earned an M.A. in Philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin, and a Ph.D. in U.S. History at Columbia University and has taught US history at Marist College and Western Connecticut State University. This is his tenth book.

About New York Power AuthorityNew York Power Authority  is the country's largest state public power organization, producing some of the cheapest electricity in North America. NYPA is a leader in promoting energy efficiency and the use of renewable-fuel technologies.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

How Nikola Tesla Inspired Google Founder Larry Page

The favorite biography among Tesla fans, Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O'Neill has been getting some recent media attention in The Business Insider.  The article documents the untold story of Larry Page (the co-founder of Google), how he came to found Google, his struggles, his successes, and his relationships with his coworkers. The writer of the article, Nicholas Carlson, compares the two individuals and depicts how Page learned from Tesla's story* and read O'Neill's biography as a young boy. 


Some highlights from the article include:

"In that moment, Page realised it wasn’t enough to envision an innovative technological future. Big ideas aren’t enough. They need to be commercialized. If Page wanted to be an inventor, he was going to have to start a successful company, too."

"Tesla’s story also taught Page to watch out for the Thomas Edisons of the world — people who will use you and place your dreams in the service of their own cynical ends."

To read the full Business Insider article, please do so here. We add a note to this article, which states that Tesla was a Croatian immigrant to the U.S. However, although he was born in Smiljan, currently in Croatia then in the mid 1880s part of the Austrian Hungarian empire, his parents were Serbian and he is considered by most to be Serbian.

Among a hardcoverpaperback and eBook version of Prodigal Genius, Cosimo also offers the following titles by Nikola Tesla:

- My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla in paperbackhardcover, and eBook versions
- Experiments With Alternate Currents of High Potential and High Frequency in both paperback and hardcover
- The Problem of Increasing Human Energy: With Special Reference to the Harnessing of the Suns Energy in paperback