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Creating the Modern Metropolis |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: James Srodes |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/2007 |
| Size: 1,206 Words, 7,648 Characters |
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THE MERCHANT OF POWER: SAM INSULL, THOMAS EDISON, AND THE CREATION OF THE MODERN METROPOLIS
John Wasik
Palgrave Macmillan, $35, 271 pages
It helps to remember that the legends of America's industrial golden age were just ordinary men. While greatness came because they mastered something important, the rest of the time they often were indifferent personalities at best. Think of Ford, of Carnegie, or of Rockefeller.
Or of Samuel Insull, now largely forgotten, but who once ranked with the greatest of the great and whose triumphs influence the way we live today, the way the automobile, steel or oil have. Like some others his fatal flaw was a giant moral black hole, but unlike them, he was brought very low indeed, a victim of his own obtuseness.
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... to Europe to escape arrest.
Despite being acquitted in several fraud trials reminiscent of the recent Enron spectacle, Insull was ruined and died broke in Paris. The irony is that his dream of electrifying America became one of the monuments of the New Deal itself. This is a well-told tale about why genius and single-mindedness are not enough.
Copyright © 2006 The Washington Times, LLC.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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