Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930
by: Thomas P. Hughes

Softcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, reprint, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wrappers, 474 pages, b&w illustrations. Awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology, this book offers a comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. It described large-scale technological change and demonstrates that technology cannot be understood unless placed in a cultural context. The book is about the formative period of electrical power systems, the years 1880 to 1930, in which these systems grew from neighborhood-sized lighting installations to immense interconnected networks that by 1930 spanned entire states and integrated different types of electric power production plants through transmission lines of hundreds of miles. Clean copy.