New York, 1888. The miracle of electric light is in its infancy, and untold glory (and untold riches) await the man who can power the nation with this new technology. Thomas Edison, the wizard of Menlo Park, has won the race to the patent office and is now suing his only remaining rival, George Westinghouse, for infringement for the unheard of sum of a billion dollars. To defend himself, Westinghouse makes a surprising choice in his attorney: he hires an untested twenty-six year old fresh out of Columbia Law School named ...
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New York, 1888. The miracle of electric light is in its infancy, and untold glory (and untold riches) await the man who can power the nation with this new technology. Thomas Edison, the wizard of Menlo Park, has won the race to the patent office and is now suing his only remaining rival, George Westinghouse, for infringement for the unheard of sum of a billion dollars. To defend himself, Westinghouse makes a surprising choice in his attorney: he hires an untested twenty-six year old fresh out of Columbia Law School named Paul Cravath. The task facing Cravath is beyond daunting - Edison quickly shows himself an implacable and crafty opponent who will lie, cheat and betray (and worse) in order to win. To defeat Thomas Edison seems impossible, yet this young, unknown attorney shares with his famous opponent a compulsion to win at all costs. How will he do it? Paul, a man of principle, starts making compromises he never imagined. And as he takes greater and greater risks, he'll find that everyone is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem.
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Add this copy of Last Days of Night to cart. $1.99, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2016 by Random House Inc (T).
It is an amazing feat for an author to turn a 'dry as bone' patent fight into high drama. However, that is just what Graham Moore did in this novel. My only complaint is that is fiction; at every plot twist, I found my wondering if it really happened. Some of the factual actions of the characters sounded like fiction. At the end of the book, the author explained where he'd made changes. Perhaps the best compliment I can share about this book is that it is so engrossing that I spent considerable time reading reference books and searching the Internet for verification of incidents and characters.
This is the billion dollar fight between business/investor titans George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison over who invented the light bulb. Part of this conflict was the issue of alternate current (AC) vs. direct current (DC) -- that these giants were working on at the same time. I found the real star of the show to be Nicoli Tesla, a Serbian genius. He worked for each of the major inventors at differing times, but he was a troubled man with great creative powers. Like Paul Cravath, the narrator in the story, I wondered why he didn't get scurvy from his constant diet of saltine crackers and water.
Of all the major characters, I was sure that Paul Cravath was fiction. However, he really was a 26-year-old man who grew during this story to be able to match wits with these major business leaders -- and win. 4.5 stars
