The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret
by Seth Shulman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Seth ShulmanEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-01-07
ISBN: 0393062066
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Book Reviews of The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret
Book Review: Central Thesis Debunked
Summary: 1 Stars
The central thesis of this book - that Bell stole the intellectual property needed to complete the telephone, was thoroughly destroyed in the review in the Spring / Summer issue of American Heritage magazine by another of Bell's biographers and a physicist who has written on early telephones.
They make two points. First, the central piece of evidence was manufactured for use by the Pan-Electric company, which had corrupted key members of Congress and the Cleveland Administration. These issues were litigated and rejected by courts during Bell's life time, and are not new. Next, the document that Bell supposedly copied dealt with an irrelevant technology that ultimately was never used in the final product.
Summary of The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret
Amazon Best of the Month, January 2008: Seth Shulman closely examines the race to build the first telephone and uncovers potential bombshells with The Telephone Gambit. Although Alexander Graham Bell is widely accepted as the father of the telephone (despite the fact that rival inventor Elisha Gray submitted a similar claim the same day Bell filed his patent), Schulman provides intriguing evidence questioning if the scales were deliberately tipped in Alexander's favor. Was the venerable inventor party to theft from Gray's own research? Or are such accusations merely sour grapes from a bitterly contested legal battle? Fraught with controversy, conspiracy, and possible chicanery, Shulman spins real-life Da Vinci Code drama around one of the most influential inventions of the modern era. --Dave CallananA gripping intrigue at the heart of one of the world's most important inventions.
While researching Alexander Graham Bell at MIT's Dibner Institute, Seth Shulman scrutinized Bell's journals and within them he found the smoking gun, a hint of deeply buried historical intrigue. Delving further, Shulman unearthed the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition.
Bell furtively—and illegally—copied part of Elisha Gray's invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. And afterward, as Bell's device led to the world's largest monopoly, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, he hid his invention's illicit beginnings. In The Telephone Gambit, Shulman challenges the reputation of an icon of invention, rocks the foundation of a corporate behemoth, and offers a probing meditation on how little we know about our own history.
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