Marconi

A little over a century ago the world went wireless. Cables and all their limiting inefficiencies gave way to a revolutionary means of transmitting news and information almost everywhere instantaneously. By means of Hertzian waves as radio waves were initially known ships could now make contact with other ships (saving lives such as on the doomed S.S. Titanic); financial markets could coordinate with other financial markets establishing the price of commodities and fixing exchange rates; military commanders could connect with the front lines positioning artillery and directing troop movements. Suddenly and irrevocably time and space telescoped beyond what had been thought imaginable. Someone had not only imagined this networked world but realized it: Guglielmo Marconi. As Marc Raboy shows us in this enthralling and comprehensive biography Marconi was the first truly global figure in modern communications. Born to an Italian father and an Irish mother he was in many ways stateless working his cosmopolitanism to advantage. Through a combination of skill tenacity luck vision and timing Marconi popularized—and more critically patented—the use of radio waves. Soon after he burst into public view at the age of 22 with a demonstration of his wireless apparatus in London 1896 he established his Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company and seemed unstoppable. He was decorated by the Czar of Russia named an Italian Senator knighted by King George V of England and awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics—all before the age of 40. Until his death in 1937 Marconi was at the heart of every major innovation in electronic communication courted by powerful scientific political and financial interests. He established stations and transmitters in every corner of the globe from Newfoundland to Buenos Aires Hawaii to Saint Petersburg. Based on original research and unpublished archival materials in four countries and several languages Raboy's book is the first to connect significant parts of Marconi's story from his early days in Italy to his groundbreaking experiments to his protean role in world affairs. Raboy also explores Marconi's relationshps with his wives mistresses and children and examines in unsparing detail the last ten years of the inventor's life when he returned to Italy and became a pillar of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. Raboy's engrossing biography which will stand as the authoritative work of its subject proves that we still live in the world Marconi created.

Alternative names:

• ISBN Marconi ( The Man Who Networked the World ) book English Hardcover 872 pages