Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age
*Starred Review* Nikola Tesla once noted that the men who worked for him sometimes “thought I was some kind of magician or hypnotizer.” Like Tesla’s assistants, biographer Carlson sees the magician and hypnotizer in the astonishing inventor. Readers, too, will perceive the magic-working wizard in the Serbian-born genius as he translates intensely conceived imaginative ideals into world-changing technologies—such as the alternating-current motor and the radio-controlled boat. And they will recognize something of the hypnotizer in the flamboyant showman who dazzles lecture-hall audiences and potential backers with electric flames passing through his body. Carlson even has something to teach readers familiar with Seifer’s dissection of Tesla’s tortured psyche in Wizard (1996) and O’Neill’s much earlier chronicle of Tesla’s childhood and early career in Prodigal Genius (1944). Carlson provides not only a more detailed explanation of Tesla’s science but also a more focused psychological account of Tesla’s inventive process than do his predecessors. Carlson also surpasses his predecessors in showing how Tesla promoted his inventions by creating luminous illusions of progress, prosperity, and peace, illusions so strong that they finally unhinge their creator. An exceptional fusion of technical analysis of revolutionary devices and imaginative sympathy for a lacerated ego. --Bryce Christensen