Book Review: The History of Wireless

Book Review: The History of Wireless

The History of Wireless: How Creative Minds Produced Technology for the Masses

The History of Wireless: How Creative Minds Produced Technology for the Masses by Ira Brodsky, Telescope Books

Last week a colleague of mine, Ira Brodsky sent me his latest book on the history of the wireless industry and i must say i was hooked on to it until i was done. It is a brilliant book especially for us industry junkies and technology history buffs. Ira has done a superb job of mining vivid details about the history, personalities of the major actors in the drama of the evolution of the wireless industry – starting from Luigi Galvani’s frog experiments back in 1781to the most recent advances in broadband wireless, this books transports you to a front row experience of the how the industry grew, each discovery made, each opportunity missed, and how each of the genius inventors over the past 200+ years through determination and foresight brought us the current day wireless industry. I wish the book was available when i was studying science and electrical engineering in school. The terms volt, faraday, ohm, hertz, etc would have had a different meaning.

We often don’t think about how “true” inventions were made in the wireless industry and take things for granted, in fact the art of original scientific inventions seems to be an endangered species these days. The details of this book are so stunning and Ira has written such a readable book that you feel like you are a fly on the wall while Galvani, Franklin, Faraday, Volta, Maxwell, Hertz, Morse, Bell, Marconi, Edison, Bose, Sarnoff, Galvin, Ericsson, Viterbi, and others were doing their thing.

The book is effective not only in capturing the history so beautifully but for drawing the lessons from successes and failures of inventors and companies. For today’s entrepreneurs there are words of wisdom and inspiration.