The Grid by Schewe
I was partly fascinated and partly disgusted by this book. Fascinated because the author discusses my most cherished subject. Disgusted that his goal of telling the story of electricity comes second to cultural sophistication and appearing intelligent to those Americans who are similarly socially conscious. He is constantly proposing loose metaphors between electricity and every thing else, not for the purpose of clarifying, since his metaphors do more to obscure the complexity of the grid than anything else. The electron is a slave, POOF, now it's a cow, BANG, a fish, Zap, the salvation of mankind. The whole book reads like a magician displaying his fantastical wares to a group of ignorant onlookers. For example, he often reverts back to a "gods of electricity" theme. Except his gods aren't Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, Insull, or any of their counterparts in business today. These gods he refers to are innate to the grid because of its complexity and they strike whenever the lowly operators of the grid get too comfortable. I only was able to choke down his endless stream of bullshit, with the rare diamond interspersed, under the surety that he's just regurgitating for mass appeal and doesn't actually have any authority. The only useful parts of this book are the first couple chapters that cover history and the bibliography.
