The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television - Softcover

Schwartz, Evan I.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060935596 ISBN 13: 9780060935597

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2003

Synopsis

Selected for "100 Biographies & Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime" - Amazon includes THE LAST LONE INVENTOR on its all-time best list.

In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time.
Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea,by the age of twenty Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.
Based on original research, including interviews with Farnsworth family members, The Last Lone Inventor is the story of the epic struggle between two equally passionate adversaries whose clash symbolized a turning point in the culture of creativity.

About this title

About the Author:

To write THE LAST LONE INVENTOR, Evan I. Schwartz spent two years researching the life stories of Philo T. Farnsworth and David Sarnoff. He interviewed surviving Farnsworth family members, including Farnsworth's 93-year-old widow, and he visited document archives in six states.

As a journalist, Evan has been covering information technology for 15 years. He is a former editor at BusinessWeek, where he covered software and digital media and was part of teams that produced 12 cover stories and won a National Magazine Award and a Computer Press Award. In recent years, he has written for The New York Times, WIRED, and MIT's Technology Review.

Evan's first book, titled WEBONOMICS, published by Broadway Books, a division of Random House, has ranked as Amazon.com's #1 bestselling business book and was chosen as a finalist for two major awards: The Global Business Book Award as well as the Computer Press Award. International editions have been published in eight countries.

Evan's second book, DIGITAL DARWINISM, from the same publisher, also hit #1 on Amazon's business list shortly after its release, in June 1999. Now in its twelfth hardcover and first paperback printing in the U.S., it is available in the U.K., from Penguin, and has been translated into eight other languages. It too was named a finalist for the Computer Press Award for Non-Fiction Book of the Year.

Evan holds a B.S. in computer science from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and lives with his family in Brookline, Mass.

From Library Journal:

This is a lively and engaging account of the conception and invention of both television and the system of network broadcasting in the United States. Schwartz (Digital Darwinism, Webonomics) tells the stories of Philo T. Farnsworth, who essentially invented television before he was 30, and David Sarnoff, the founder of NBC, who essentially invented the business of broadcasting before he was 30. These two men were at tremendous odds with each other for decades, and the nature of their conflict helped determine the shape of the U.S. broadcasting industry. While many other works document the beginnings of broadcast media, they tend to be overviews, offering less of a personal story. This book complements D. Godfrey and C. Sterling's Philo T. Farnsworth: The Father of Television, which takes a drier, more academic approach to the inventor's life and work and should be of interest to academic libraries, particularly those with a technology or engineering department. Schwartz's well-researched biography is sure to appeal to anyone who has ever dreamed of coming up with "the next big thing." Recommended for public libraries and academic or special libraries with a media or technology focus. Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060935596
• ISBN 13: 9780060935597
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352