Customer Reviews

The Battery: How Portable Power Sparked a Technological Revolution

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Henry Schlesinger's well-written and interesting book "The Battery: how portable power sparked a technological revolution" is in many ways more of a history of electricity and its uses than it is about batteries. Much of the text is about the uses of batteries, and the devices that required batteries, than about batteries themselves. Batteries do not make an appearance before page 38, the previous pages being devoted to the earlier history of electricity and magnetism, including the Leyden jar, a sort of capacitor which stores electricity, and also to the work William Gilbert and Benjamin Franklin. Even after batteries make an appearance, much of the text is devoted to the devices that used them, such as the telegraph, early telephones, and radios. The use of batteries for chemical research in the 1800s by Humphrey Davy is also highlighted. The author offers apparently contradictory definitions of anode and cathode- see page 77 and page 177.
The development of transistors and integrated chips reduced the power requirements for existing devices, such as radios, as well as making new devices (among the older ones, electronic watches and calculators) possible, thereby extending the uses of batteries. The last two short chapters 18, and 19, as well as the epilogue, do focus more specifically on battery and capacitor development since roughly the 1980s.

I thought this book was well worth the money even though the author really needed to run this past a technical reviewer before submitting it for publication; I can't believe the publisher HarperCollins didn't bother with this either. I will wait and pay more attention to others peoples reviews nexttime before I buy a technical book from HarperCollins.

Being an Electrical Engineer I found the authors credibility sink lower each time I came across another of many technical errors. At the very least I expect any technical author to know the difference between voltage and current when writing a book on batteries; I found well over a dozen different technical errors in the 300 pages.

Having said all that I also have to say I did very much enjoy the book, it was a good historical read and held my attention until the last pages. I would recommend it to others as long as they read it like a novel and not try and expand themselves technologically from it.

In our society, batteries are indispensable, yet they are usually taken for granted. Few people may know that batteries have a fascinating history of their own. In this book, the author recounts the history of electricity - from the first millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century. The first two thousand years or so are covered in the first fifty pages of the book. A more detailed history is provided from about 1800 onwards. In relating this history, the author has devoted much space to the uses that were (and are being) made of electricity. Extensive discussions are included on the telegraph, the telephone, wireless communication, radio, vacuum tube technology, transistors, integrated circuits, printed circuit boards, miniaturization, military applications and a great variety of miscellaneous gadgetry. The evolution of what we now call "batteries" is told in parallel with these technological developments. However, the last couple of chapters focus almost exclusively on recent advances in battery technology, as well as astonishing information as to what the consumer may expect in the next few decades.

Since this is a book aimed at the "nontechnical reader", as pointed out in its introduction, these discussions slant mainly on the human side (social, military) rather than on the hard scientific/technical details of construction and operation, although some such descriptions were attempted. Unfortunately, where they were attempted, I found that some (but by no means all) were seriously lacking in clarity. I read some such descriptions several times in order to try (unsuccessfully) to make sense of them. That can be rather frustrating for a technically-minded reader. Perhaps these descriptions should have been either left out or abbreviated so as to give the reader a more superficial but clear and accurate idea and nothing more.

The writing style is friendly, widely accessible, lively and quite engaging. This is a book that can be enjoyed by any non-technical reader who is interested in the history of electrical/electronic technology. Readers who are more scientifically inclined can enjoy it as well, as long as they are aware of the shortcomings in some of the technical descriptions.

Athough the book is a good read giving many stories involving the history of electricity, electronics, and sometimes even batteries, the numerous errors were annoying. To mention a few: On at least a couple of occasions the author used "notorious" when he apparently meant "famous", he missed the derivation of the word transistor--it is "transfer of resistance" not "transconductance and varistor", and he seemed to confuse the terms "anode" and "cathode". Again, although an interesting book, these and many other errors made me question the overall accuracy of the events portrayed.

Length:: 9:07 Mins

Joshua Cutaia's review was made as part of a critical review assignment for the Spring 2011 Economics of Technology seminar at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, taught by Art Diamond. (The course syllabus stated that part of the critical review assignment consisted of the making of a video recording of the review, and the posting of the review to Amazon.)

Unlike another reviewer I am NOT an EE and thought that I would have liked it more had that been the case. While interesting, my foundation in chemistry and physics is pretty basic and I found myself skimming over a great deal of the comprehensive but tedious review of history and experimentation. The omni present clashes between science and faith, fact and fiction were amusing (as is our tendency to confabulate when logical explanation fails) and it is always humbling to place the discovery, development and application of the things we take for granted within a context. If creative exploration of the elements, particularly electricity, rings your chimes or if you enjoy learning the origin of words such as "battery", this is a good choice.

The author does a superb job making technology entertaining for all types of readers. His book documents over 200 years of research and development throughout the world leading to the common commodity called "the battery." This invention plays a very important part in almost everything we do. The author also paints, like all artists, a bright future for the battery. If you are in the energy business or thinking about buying one of those new electric cars you will see on the roads in the next few years - buy this book, it is worth the read.

Learn about all the "rock stars" of science. This book is a must read for anyone who decides to contribute to solving our energy crisis.

As a long time battery technical consultant and Electrical Engineer, I found this book very informative and filled with little known facts on the history of our electrical/electronic revolution. How we came to this level of expertise and the steps along the way is facinating. I highly recomend it for both techincal and general interest audiences.

This is how history of technology books should be written. Beyond the captivating narrative you can detect the depth of research that went into putting it together. Pretty much every page has a factoid, a tidbit of information that makes reading this book like a treasure hunt. We are so used to batteries that we probably don't stop and wonder why we have alkaline batteries while most of the technology evolution was about improving the acid. Why have batteries the shape they have. Why there is no "B" battery anymore. How consumers went from replacing battery fluids to hook up to the power grid. The - now - obvious design of a flashlight. This sounds awfully technical and even boring, but the author is master of his skill. He can feed you this information in one word, or one short comment. Sometimes the author winks at you as if to say: I will hide a whole drama under one single simple sentence, you know it and I know it, but would others get it? For example: he tells of two inventors of the transistor and their supervisor. Left unsaid was that the supervisor also got the Nobel prize for the invention after his frantic scramble to rewrite history and literally put himself in the picture. Same with Edison and the vacuum tube, or Marconi and the wireless. Well done!

In presenting a history of the humble, but oh so necessary, battery, Henry Schlesinger has taken a fascinating ramble through the history of science and the development of technology. This is science writing at its best, brilliant, knowledgeable, and frequently funny as hell. This is a great book for the student, the curious, for the knowledgeable and the ignorant. It provides a very high order of fun.