Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940
David Nye casts his bright light on everything from assembly lines to washing machines, from the plummeting price of urban electricity to the usefulness of electric incubators in chicken farming... Mr. Nye succeeds not simply because he knows his technology, but also because be understands the complexity of American culture.... [He] has the breadth of knowledge and the good sense to see the significance in paintings like Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks'... and to weave such observations into the very armature of his argument that electricity transformed not only American life but the American self "—John R. Stilgoe, New York Times Book Review