Simply Electrifying
The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk
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Narrated by:
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Tom Perkins
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By:
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Craig R. Roach
About this listen
Simply Electrifying: The Technology That Transformed the World, from Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk brings to life the 250-year history of electricity through the stories of the men and women who used it to transform our world: Benjamin Franklin, James Watt, Michael Faraday, Samuel F.B. Morse, Thomas Edison, Samuel Insull, Albert Einstein, Rachel Carson, Elon Musk, and more. In the process, it reveals for the first time the complete, thrilling, and often dangerous story of electricity's historic discovery, development, and worldwide application.
Electricity plays a fundamental role not only in our everyday lives but in history's most pivotal events, from global climate change and the push for wind- and solar-generated electricity to Japan's nuclear accident at Fukushima and Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Written by electricity expert and four-decade veteran of the industry, Craig R. Roach, Simply Electrifying marshals, in fascinating narrative detail, the full range of factors that shaped the electricity business over time - science, technology, law, politics, government regulation, economics, business strategy, and culture - before looking forward toward the exhilarating prospects for electricity generation and use that will shape our future.
©2017 Craig R. Roach (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Private Empire
- ExxonMobil and American Power
- By: Steve Coll
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 24 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Steve Coll investigates the largest and most powerful private corporation in the United States, revealing the true extent of its power. ExxonMobil’s annual revenues are larger than the economic activity in the great majority of countries. In many of the countries where it conducts business, ExxonMobil’s sway over politics and security is greater than that of the United States embassy. In Washington, ExxonMobil spends more money lobbying Congress and the White House than almost any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is a black box.
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Please no more accents!
- By Zak on 07-24-12
By: Steve Coll
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The Bet
- Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future
- By: Paul Sabin
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public’s imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine—with apocalyptic consequences for humanity.
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Why can't we even discuss Global Overpopulaion???
- By Leslie deGraffenried on 10-19-15
By: Paul Sabin
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The Real Global Warming Disaster
- Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
- By: Christopher Booker
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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This original audiobook considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history. Christopher Booker interweaves the science of global warming with that of its growing political consequences, showing how just when the politicians are threatening to change our Western way of life beyond recognition, the scientific evidence behind the global warming theory is being challenged like never before.
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The message made my blood boil
- By George on 10-14-14
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The Most Powerful Idea in the World
- A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
- By: William Rosen
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning author William Rosen tells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it: the steam engine.
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A Revelation about a Revolution
- By Roy on 08-01-10
By: William Rosen
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Getting Green Done
- Hard Truths From the Frontlines of Sustainability Revolution
- By: Auden Schendler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Soccer moms drive Priuses. Sport utility vehicles are going hybrid. Families are using hemp shopping bags. More and more companies are developing "green" buildings. What's more, the business consultants say going green is easy and profitable. In reality, though, many green-leaning businesses, families, and governments are still fiddling with the small stuff while the planet burns. Why?
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Green's Dirty Little Secrets
- By Martin on 07-10-09
By: Auden Schendler
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The Zero Marginal Cost Society
- The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
- By: Jeremy Rifkin
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this provocative new book, Rifkin argues that the coming together of the Communication Internet with the fledgling Energy Internet and Logistics Internet in a seamless twenty-first-century intelligent infrastructure—the Internet of Things—is boosting productivity to the point where the marginal cost of producing many goods and services is nearly zero, making them essentially free.
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Not a convincing argument-just stories & ideology
- By Pierre Parent on 07-26-17
By: Jeremy Rifkin
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That Used to Be Us
- How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
- By: Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.
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We have met the enemy and it is us.... Pogo
- By Soudant on 09-16-11
By: Thomas L. Friedman, and others
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Americana
- A 400-Year History of American Capitalism
- By: Bhu Srinivasan
- Narrated by: Scott Brick, Bhu Srinivasan
- Length: 21 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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From the days of the Mayflower and the Virginia Company, America has been a place for people to dream, invent, build, tinker, and bet the farm in pursuit of a better life. Americana takes us on a 400-year journey of this spirit of innovation and ambition through a series of Next Big Things - the inventions, techniques, and industries that drove American history forward: from the telegraph, the railroad, guns, radio, and banking, to flight, suburbia, and sneakers, culminating with the Internet and mobile technology at the turn of the 21st century.
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Excellent history!
- By L. Maranto on 10-14-17
By: Bhu Srinivasan
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You Belong to the Universe
- Buckminster Fuller and the Future
- By: Jonathon Keats
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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A self-professed "comprehensive anticipatory design scientist", the inventor Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was undoubtedly a visionary. Fuller's creations often bordered on the realm of science fiction, ranging from the freestanding geodesic dome to the three-wheel Dymaxion car to a bathroom requiring neither plumbing nor sewage. Yet in spite of his brilliant mind and lifelong devotion to serving mankind, Fuller's expansive ideas were often dismissed, and have faded from public memory since his death.
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Bucky, Bucky, Bucky
- By Amazon Customer on 08-25-18
By: Jonathon Keats
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Great narration, sloppy writing
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Amazing narration of an incredibly well told story
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Worthless without pdf or book
- By John R. Wadman on 01-15-24
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Two of the boldest and most creative scientists of all time were Michael Faraday (1791-1867) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). This is the story of how these two men - separated in age by 40 years - discovered the existence of the electromagnetic field and devised a radically new theory which overturned the strictly mechanical view of the world that had prevailed since Newton's time.
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Very Informative, But Desperately Needs A pdf
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A disappointment
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What listeners say about Simply Electrifying
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-01-18
Good read/listen
Very interesting. Good book overall. Covers great history. Goes into detail on many different topics.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Troy L. Hester
- 06-15-20
Broader than my narrow interest.
From my perspective, this book starts strong with a sweeping treatment of the birth of the science of electricity. My interests are more technical, however, and the book later devotes considerable time to the business, policy, politics, and regulation of the industry. Nothing wrong with that; it's just not my primary interest.
The latter treatment of renewable energy and Elon Must was disappointingly brief, however I must admit that chapter of history is still unfolding.
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- Calvert
- 05-15-23
EHHH
Cool background Franklin and Faraday but felt a bit dull and at times a bit bla bla. Georg Ohm could have used more shine.
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- Dan Cohen
- 06-26-23
Boring
boring book and monotone narrator. not my worst purchase. I was really not expecting so many hours of electricity policy and environmental concerns about coal. it would have been better to leave politics out and talk about the modernizations of generators and renewable power mechanics more.
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Overall
- Jonathan
- 10-14-19
deceptive junk
I wanted pure history of electricity but what I got was pure garbage about politics, environmental theories, and just babblings.
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4 people found this helpful
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- MGGGK9
- 10-23-23
Interesting to boring
This book is not what it says it is. The first quarter actually focuses on the discovery and applications of electricity, but after that it’s all about the bureaucracy of how electricity was integrated into society. Struggled through as long as I could, but had to give up. Not worth the time.
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- Alexander Douglass
- 12-28-18
decent, but ended up disappointing.
struggled to finish. thought it would be a good book about electricity from an engineering perspective, but is just a political science book. first chapters were good, but ended up talking politics. disappointing.
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5 people found this helpful