Tube: The Invention of Television (Sloan Technology Series) [Hardcover]

David E. Fisher (Author), Marshall Jon Fisher (Author)

Book Description

Series: Sloan Technology Series | Publication Date: September 1996

"An engrossing, in-depth look at the history of the medium". Publishers Weekly

"An informative, entertaining account of the box, its earliest broadcasts, and the ambitions that drove the people who created it". Booklist

Tube tells the stories behind the invention of television and the intense competition to bring it to market. Devilish character sketches and compelling anecdotes capture the brilliance, vision, and frustration of its colorful inventors.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Sir Thomas Beecham says he believes that television can do much to improve the musical taste of the nation. " -- The London Times, September 1, 1936

"It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste of the American nation." -- David Sarnoff

"Television? The word is half Greek and half Latin. No good will come of it." -- C.P. Scott, editor, Manchester Guardian, 1928

Having been involved with the Internet since 1981, I have watched discussions about the promise and perils of computer networks with an ever-growing suspicion that this drama had been played out before. In 1992, I began collecting books, articles, and data about the early history of telephony, radio, and television, with an eye toward writing a history of these past technologies that would enlighten current debates. Thankfully, Fisher and Fisher have written the book about the history of television that I would have written--and in a much more expert fashion than I could have hoped.

In the tradition of the Sloan Foundation Technology Series other superb books (such as The Invention That Changed the World (about radar) and Computer: A History of the Information Machine), this is technological history at its best: informed about technology and the institutional and commercial matrices within which it works, and populated by a fully-realized cast of eccentric geniuses, captains of industry, and multinational corporations jockeying for mastery of a jillion-dollar industry. Very Highly Recommended.

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 427 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887178171
• ISBN-13: 978-1887178174
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,123,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Marshall Jon Fisher was born in 1963 in Ithaca, New York, grew up in Miami, and graduated from Brandeis University, where he played varsity tennis. He worked as a sportswriter in Miami and a tennis pro in Munich before moving to New York City, where he received an M.A. in English at City College. In 1989 he moved to Boston and began working as a freelance writer and editor.

He has written on a variety of topics for The Atlantic Monthly, ranging from wooden tennis rackets to Internet fraud, and his work has also appeared in Harper's, Discover, DoubleTake, and other publications, as well as The Best American Essays 2003. His book "The Ozone Layer" was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the best books for teenagers of 1993. His book (with his father, David E. Fisher) "Tube: the Invention of Television" was published by Counterpoint in 1996 and by Harcourt Brace in paperback in 1997. Their second book together, "Strangers in the Night: a Brief History of Life on Other Worlds" (Counterpoint 1998), was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the twenty-five Books to Remember of 1998.

In 2009, "A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played" was published to great acclaim. The Washington Times called it "a fine book...solidly researched.... Marshall Jon Fisher has found a remarkable story and has told it well." The Wall Street Journal termed it "rich and rewarding," and The San Francisco Chronicle called it "enthralling...a gripping tale.... Fisher pulls the task off with supreme finesse, at once revealing the triumph and tragedy of a remarkable tennis match." You can read more about the author and the book at marshalljonfisher.com.

Marshall lives in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts with his wife, Mileta Roe (a professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Bard College at Simon's Rock), and their two sons, Satchel and Bram.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer 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

This review is from: Tube: The Invention of Television (Sloan Technology Series) (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

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Close, but no cigar., December 30, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: Tube: The Invention of Television (Sloan Technology Series) (Hardcover)

"Tube" is a scholarly rendering of a fascinating, important, but largely untold piece of history. Unfortunately, the authors failed to search beneath the surface of the surviving historical record to find the true facts, and have instead reiterated a false accounting that has been preserved by more than than 60 years of corporate public relations.

"Tube" repeats oft cited historical record that "Vladimir Zworykin became 'the father of television' when he invented as device called the "iconoscope" while working for RCA in 1923." That is a single sentence that manages to embody about four historical innacuracies.

What's worse, repeating this false litany obscures one of the most amazing achievements of the 20th century: that television as we know it emerged whole from the mind of a 14 year old farm boy named Philo T. Farnsworth. The Fishers' book recognizes Farnsworth, but fails to differentiate his achievement from that of Zworykin, or to examine the patent record deeply enough to unveil the true magnitude of Farnsworth's contribution.

Philo T. Farnsworth paved the way for today's living room dreams, but the Fishers' book treats his contribution no better than dozens of volumes that precede it. For the true story, read "The Farnsworth Chronicles" on the web at

http://songs.com/philo

--Paul Schatzkin

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cigars all around for a first-rate book, January 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Tube: The Invention of Television (Sloan Technology Series) (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