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Lädt ... Marconi: The Man Who Networked the Worldvon Marc Raboy
   Keine Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch.  Shrike58 | Jul 13, 2023 |   One of the great achievements of Marc Raboy's book is in conveying the many facets of Marconi's life, one that was lived, often simultaneously, in the worlds of science, business, and politics. The son of a well-to-do Italian landowner and his Irish wife, Marconi developed an early interest in science. Interested in the recently-announced discovery of "Hertzian waves," he experimented with using them for wireless communication, and in his early twenties he succeeded. Moving to England, he soon became an international celebrity with the demonstration of his device, and he soon launched a company that at one point threatened to establish a monopoly on usage of the airwaves. within a few short years Marconi was an international celebrity, one whose name was synonymous with progress. This would be later exploited by Mussolini, who roped a willing Marconi into supporting his Fascist regime. Benefiting from the release of some previously unavailable papers, Raboy succeeds in providing a comprehensive life of Marconi set withing the context of his age. It's a considerably rich book, full of details of Marconi's inventions and his business activities, yet one that manages to remain remarkably readable as well. It is difficult to imagine that Raboy's life of Marconi will be bettered -- though if it is, it would have to be by a truly remarkable book. (  ) MacDad | Mar 27, 2020 | Zeige 2 von 2 keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
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Marc Raboy gives us the first real account of Marconi's vital role as the wizard of wireless, industry developer, and consummate political insider. Raboy's impeccably researched biography will help guide histories of global media in the years ahead.
A little over a century ago the world went wireless. Cables and all their limiting inefficiencies gave way to a revolutionary means of transmitting news and information almost everywhere, instantaneously. By means of "Hertzian waves," as radio waves were initially known, ships could now make contact with other ships (saving lives, such as on the doomed Titanic); financial markets could coordinate with other financial markets; military commanders could connect with the front lines. Suddenly and irrevocably, time and space telescoped beyond what had been thought imaginable. Someone had not only imagined this networked world but realized it: Guglielmo Marconi. As Marc Raboy shows us in this comprehensive biography, Marconi was the first truly global figure in modern communications. Born to an Italian father and an Irish mother, he was in many ways stateless, working his cosmopolitanism to advantage. Through a combination of skill, tenacity, luck, vision, and timing, Marconi popularized--and, more critically, patented--the use of radio waves. Soon after he burst into public view with a demonstration of his wireless apparatus in London at the age of 22 in 1896, he established his Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company and seemed unstoppable. He was decorated by the Czar of Russia, named an Italian Senator, knighted by King George V of England, and awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics--all before the age of 40. Until his death in 1937, Marconi was at the heart of every major innovation in electronic communication, courted by powerful scientific, political, and financial interests, and trailed by the media, which recorded and published nearly every one of his utterances. He established stations and transmitters in every corner of the globe. Based on original research and unpublished archival materials in four countries and several languages, Raboy's book is the first to connect significant parts of Marconi's story, from his early days in Italy, to his groundbreaking experiments, to his protean role in world affairs. Raboy also explores Marconi's relationships with his wives, mistresses, and children, and examines in unsparing detail the last ten years of the inventor's life, when he returned to Italy and became a pillar of Mussolini's fascist regime. Raboy's engrossing biography proves that we still live in the world Marconi created.--Adapted from dust jacket. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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 Google Books — Lädt ...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)621.384092Technology Engineering and allied operations Applied physics Electrical, magnetic, optical, communications, computer engineering; electronics, lighting Electronics, communications engineering Radar, RadioKlassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt: (4.4)
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As might be expected, most of the page-count is devoted to Marconi's adventures in technology, as his tinkering as a young man ultimately led to the wireless revolution, and then to his never ending battle to defend his intellectual property. In regards to what Marconi's greatest talent might have been, Raboy suggests that it was an ability to strip away extraneous matters and relentlessly pursue the main avenues of advance to a successful conclusion; regardless of the cost.
However, the main reason I wanted to read this work is that Raboy deals forthrightly with the more dubious elements of Marconi's life; particularly how he was an early adherent of Mussolini's Fascist regime, and was ultimately an uncompromising defender of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia. That this came to pass might simply be a commentary on how as much as Marconi was a great example of a cosmopolitan Edwardian figure, he was also a product of Italy's struggle for great power status. Raboy further observes that, for all the individualist and unconventional elements of Marconi's personality, when it came to politics he was very much a conformist, if for no other reason that it was going to take access to political power to implement his technological vision. Marconi might have had some personal reservations with Mussolini's policies, but that didn't prevent him from taking prestigious positions in the regime and executing Fascist policies. It was only when the realization dawned that war between Rome and London was in the cards that reality set in for the man as to what he had ultimately signed up for. Marconi's death in 1937 was probably a mercy. (