Alexander Graham Bell

Here, Edwin Grosvenor, American Heritage’s publisher and Bell’s great-grandson, tells the dramatic story of the race to invent the telephone and how Bell’s patent for it would become the most valuable ever issued. He also writes of Bell’s other extraordinary inventions: the first transmission of sound over light waves, metal detector, first practical phonograph, and early airplanes, including the first to fly in Canada. And he examines Bell’s humanitarian efforts, including support for women’s suffrage, civil rights, and speeches about what he warned would be a “greenhouse effect” of pollution causing global warming.

Great inventors tend to become so closely identified with their most famous invention that their very lives become obscured. As this terse, admiring assessment of Bell's (18471922) life makes clear, the telephone--his greatest accomplishment and a leading invention of the 19th century--represented only one element in his long and restless career. He also devised the first practical phonograph and did important work on aviation in its infancy. This shy, amiable man also headed the National Geographic Society, was an outspoken proponent of civil rights, and worried publicly about the impact of technology on the environment. Grosvenor, Bell's great-grandson, and Wesson, a documentary filmmaker, offer a useful overview of Bell's professional achievements, succinct descriptions of his ideas, and a lively account of the telephone's impact on American society. The 405 illustrations (35 in color) offer a fascinating view of Bell's high-spirited family life and circle of friends, and of the early years of the telephone business. An effective marriage of text and photographs, and a succinct portrait of a decent man and a remarkable scientist. (Book-of-the-Month Club featured selection; History Book Club alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.