Customer Reviews

My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The introduction material in this book written by Ben Johnston is well prepared, informative, and brief. It is a good introduction to the rest of the book which is Tesla's writing.

Tesla's own words can be tedious, but hey the language has changed a bit in the last 100 years. He takes a few rabbit trails and talks much of his inventions not what he thinks and feels. I would really like to know why he liked pigeons so much but he never says. What Tesla doesn't say, gives us insights to what is important to him. No serious study of Tesla can neglect this work.

For a more in-depth historical biography of the man see, Margaret Cheney's "Tesla, Man out of Time". ISBN 0-88029-419-1

You can read this book in a weekend and it's very interesting.
It's his autobiography, his inventions.
It's available free on the internet in pdf.
You should buy "A man out of Time" instead.

This is a very personal look at this inventor's life. Unlike many other biographies this autobiography tells us specifically what Tesla's reason were. Tesla also tells many very personal and insightful stories about himself. Many other works site this one because of its invaluable reference. Tells much about the inventor in abridged way.

In this book, Tesla himslef explains the inner workings of his mind. To me, knowing how he actually came up with his inventions is the best any Tesla book could possibly get.

Excellent book! Tesla's dry style and wry wit combine to form a greatly intuitive look into the master's life. I whole-heartedly recomend this book!

~B

Tesla doesn't give much information about himself as a person in this series of articles, but it's evident that he defined himself by the technology he created, and we can learn a lot about him by reading his passion for his science. The introduction by Ben Johnston made me want to know more about Tesla the man.

Mr. Johnston's introduction does more to explain Nikola Tesla than anything I've seen to date. In freeing him from much of the popular myth, Johnston allows Tesla's genius to reveal itself.

So you saw "The Prestige" and are intrigued. Good!

This book is for you, then. In fact, I suggest you read this AUTOBIOGRAPHY before you read Cheney's BIOGRAPHY, getting your information from the horse's mouth.

Considering that English is a second language for Tesla, this book is a smooth read. Having a minister father and being polyglot himself, and being blessed with a great memory for poetry, of course, helped out.

As an autobiography, we get to pick Tesla's mind, and see things as he saw him. He candidly talks about his early childhood visions and eidetic memory, and his ability to conceive of inventions solely by concentration. One biographer suggested that Tesla was the avatar of a Venusian spirit. The funny thing is that this is almost believable.

I was also moved by the trauma that he experienced as a child such as the death of his brother, the negative aspects of his vision, and the bouts of hypervigilance where he could hear a watch ticking several rooms away. A friend of mine has had this same affliction, and I pity them both.

My favorite chapter is the first one, where he explains his philosophy of invention:

"The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention. It is the most important product of his creative brain. Its ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. This is the difficult task of the inventor who is often misunderstood and unrewarded. But he finds ample compensation in the pleasing exercises of his powers and in the knowledge of being one of that exceptionally privileged class without whom the race would have long ago perished in the bitter struggle against pitiless elements."

PS--you can find a pdf of this book online. But having it bound makes it easier to read.

Nikola Tesla was truely a man beyond his time, as this autobiography shows. Little mention of him in our schools, as we are told that T.A. Edison was the true inventor of many electrical items. Through this book, the truth is told. This is a book that should be required reading in all grammer schools!

This is not a bad book if you're interested in Tesla, although he includes far more information on his inventions, as the title suggests, than he does biographical information. The style is rather dry, but the technical ideas are informative for anyone interested in the history of technology in the 19th and 20th centuries.