It is hard to think of any other device that we take so much for granted as the telephone, so it is both refreshing and eye-opening to go back to those days before landlines—let alone the mobile phone—existed and changed society forever. James Gleick is a marvelous writer, and he brings alive in vivid and fascinating detail how the telephone was invented—Alexander Graham Bell by no means deserves all the credit—and how much the initial product was derided, especially by the Western Union Telegraph Company.
The Telephone is a saga about pioneers, dreamers, businesspeople, not a few rabid geniuses, and the cultural impact, whether it be by giving so many women a foot in the workplace (“Hello, operator?” was almost always answered by a female in the device’s earliest years) or by popularizing the word “hello,” which was rarely used as a greeting before the telephone came along. (Bell, who did secure the patent for the telephone in 1876, wanted users to say “Ahoy.”) The telephone had to overcome suspicions that it was used too often for shady deals or illicit affairs, since there was no record of the talks. It also became the pathway, thanks to Bell Labs, for the transistor and the laser. (The researchers who worked there won a total of 11 Nobel prizes.) The Telephone is a joy to read. Call your friends and urge them to buy a copy.