W. Bernard Carlson

The most balanced treatment of the fascinating man I know of. It goes into more technical detail than others I have read. An excellent combination of description and analysis that neither idolizes Tesla for his bold imagination, vision and achievement, nor disparages him for his more off-the-wall and impractical ideas and perhaps less than intelligent approach to things.

This was a great biography of the famed inventor. All the little anecdotes, mixed with the important details of his life, were here and made me wonder and think about both Tesla and his creations. Tesla lived a difficult life, and this is all established here and expounded upon. A well done biography that people should read.

4.5 stars!

In modern times, Telsa is thrown using terms like "conspiracy" and "magic". His legacy has been revived in recent years, with theories about "the government" holding back various inventions of his. Even The Oatmeal (web comic) has jumped on board crediting Tesla as the inventor of just about everything electrical and wireless in the last 150 years.

This book puts these in perspective and helps separate the truth from the myth. The truth is, he was a very smart inventor at a time when a lot of show more major technical inventions were coming into being. Tesla made his money (which would be 10s of millions in todays dollars) by patenting his work and leasing it out to other companies. This goes against some of the Tesla conspiracy theories that circulate today.

What was interesting to me was that Tesla seemed myopic in pursuit of wireless power transfer, which eventually would bankrupt him. During this time he neglected radio transmission (which let Marcone take credit) and he overlooked X-rays in his experiments, only realizing them after someone else made the discovery.

Tesla seemed like a nerd who loved thinking of world changing electronics, but not always with a plan on how to roll them out to the world who would use them. This, coupled with a love for living the high life, meant that he was dreaming big and living big, but was not able to continually raise more funds needed to make wireless power a reality. show less

Biography of Tesla that attempts to chart a middle path between treating him as a crank and treating him as the inventor of everything modern whose contributions were ignored/suppressed. Carlson emphasizes the need for technological innovation to match business needs and imaginations; when Tesla lost his business-savvy partners, he entered a decline from which he never really pulled back. He also emphasizes the modern dance between patentees and actual manufacturers; Tesla never really show more wanted to make stuff, only to license his patents to get more money to spend on his lab. He ended up making lots of promises he couldn’t keep, and so his story ends rather sadly even as he remains a relatively well-known inventor. show less