Brilliant

The Evolution of Artificial Light

By: Jane Brox

Narrated by: Randye Kaye

Brilliant, reminiscent of Lewis Hyde's The Gift in its reach and of Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time in its haunting evocation of human lives, offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history - from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future.

Brox plumbs the class implications of light - who had it, who didn't - through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. She convincingly portrays the hell-bent pursuit of whale oil as the first time the human desire for light thrust us toward an environmental tipping point. Only decades later, gas street lights opened up the evening hours to leisure, which changed the ways we live and sleep and the world's ecosystems.

Edison's "tiny strip of paper that a breath would blow away" produced a light that seemed to its users all but divorced from human effort or cost. And yet, as Brox's informative and hair-raising portrait of our current grid system shows, the cost is ever with us.

Brilliant is infused with human voices, startling insights, and - only a few years before it becomes illegal to sell most incandescent light bulbs in the United States - timely questions about how our future lives will be shaped by light.

©2010 Jane Brox (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Lots of lists with a new perspective of modernity.

This book starts out slowly. I bought it because it was cheap and I had no historical context to put the evolution of artificial light into.

I have certainly gained context. I am going to be checking out some of the books referenced in this one. I always feel a much deeper understanding of humanity when I gain insight into what most of our past was like. I always feel a much deeper connection to humanity when prejudices and real obstacles are laid out for me to see.

The interconnectedness of our own feelings of imagined safety combine with what seems like simple technologies to have huge impacts on the environment and the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. The often simple solutions to massive problems and a brief glimpse at a few of the inspired thinkers make the boring lists and the acceptable narrator worth your time.

Good info but very incomplete.

First I’ll say the audio performance was great. My problems are with the book author. I feel that far too much time was dedicated to telling the story of invention and development of electricity and the electric grid.

I don’t mind that she included this information on the whole, it helps round out the story. But too much space is dedicated to this and much of it repeated two or even three times while other interesting details were left out completely.

This book is about the development of lighting technology, not the electrical grid. My biggest gripe is the complete omission of portable light. How do you tell the story of modern artificial light without talking about portable forms of that light? Portable light is just as important as stationary. It would not have taken much space. A few paragraphs here and there about the invention of the first flashlight then maybe a few improvements through the decades, maybe mention early train lights then car lights? What made these lights possible away from the grid? A mention about the first headlamp? That’s a truly revolutionary invention right there!

Also, I was very disappointed that no mention of Mr. Coleman or his lanterns was made. She makes a single reference to the technology of mantle lamps and that’s it. I’m so surprised because Coleman is a household name. How do you miss mentioning someone so well known when writing a book about light technology? Granted he was no Edison, but his lamps were pivotal as a safer transition technology from old oil wick lamps to electricity, especially in rural areas. Plus, his lanterns literally made camping popular. Far fewer people would have ventured into the outdoors to try camping for the first time if they had not had such a reliable and bright light at night.

Well aside from those two glaring omissions, it was a fun book overall if you enjoy history and technology. I would recommend.