Stross randall author (3 Ergebnisse)

Paperback. Zustand: Brand New. 288 pages. 7.64x5.08x0.98 inches. In Stock.

Hardcover. Zustand: Very good. Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Very good. [8], 376 pages. Illustrations. Introduction. Part I: Success, with chapters on Almost Famous, The Wizard of Menlo Park, Flight, Getting Ahead, Stagecraft, and Immersion; Part II: Life After with chapters on Starting Anew, Battle Lost, Fun, Kingly Privilege, Friend Ford, Letting Go. There is an Epilogue, Notes, Acknowledgments, and an Index. Randall Stross writes the New York Times column Digital Domain and is professor of business at San Jose State University. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including The Wizard of Menlo Park, eBoys, and The Microsoft Way. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: In this entertaining biography, Stross approaches the life of Edison from an atypical angle: where scores of other biographers have focused on the genius's technical career, Stross presents Edison as the first self-conscious celebrity, a man deeply aware of the media's power and who wasn't afraid to use "the press's hunger for more sensational discoveries for his own ends." Though branding is now second-nature for famous people, Stross asserts that Edison launched the first successful branding campaign-an achievement arguably further ahead of its time than much of his technical output-by embracing the title "Wizard of Menlo Park," which was coined by a reporter during Edison's brief stay in that New Jersey town. With great skill in image-management, Edison became indistinguishable from his moniker, encapsulating perfectly the mystery and wisdom he cultivated throughout his life, for himself and his "invention factory," which "seemed capable of mastering anything." At the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as the Napoleon of invention and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Newspapers proclaimed his genius in glowing personal profiles and quipped that the doctor has been called because the great man had not invented anything since breakfast. Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light, a power generation and distribution system to sustain it, and the first motion picture cameras, all achievements more astonishing in their time than we can easily grasp today Edison's name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels. But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison's greatest invention may have been his own celebrity. Edison was certainly a technical genius, but Stross excavates the man from layers of myth-making and separates his true achievements from his almost equally colossal failures. How much credit should Edison receive for the various inventions that have popularly been attributed to him , and how many of them resulted from both the inspiration and the perspiration of his rivals and even his own assistants? How much of Edison's technical skill helped him overcome a lack of business acumen and feel for consumers' wants and needs? This bold reassessment of Edison's life and career answers these and many other important questions while telling the story of how he came upon his most famous inventions as a young man and spent the remainder of his long life trying to conjure similar success. We also meet his partners and competitors, presidents and entertainers, his close friend Henry Ford, the wives who competed with his work for his attention, and the children who tried to thrive in his shadow, all providing a fuller view of Edison's life and times than has ever been offered before. The Wizard of Menlo Park reveals not only how Edison worked, but how he managed his own fame, becoming the first great celebrity of the modern age. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Glen Cohn (Author Photograph) (illustrator).…

Hardcover. Zustand: Brand New. 240 pages. 5.50x8.00x0.75 inches. In Stock.