{"product_id":"9781435161238","title":"Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”\u003c\/i\u003e —Thomas Edison  Like most people who change the world, Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931) was not expected to do much with his life. The last of seven children, he was a frail, distractible child with bad hearing whose father thought he might be dim-witted. However, the endlessly curious Edison was a habitual inventor and voracious reader from an early age. A driven entrepreneur, at twelve he was already hawking newspapers and candy on a train while simultaneously operating stores in two train stations. These two personality traits, the businessman and the scientist, combined with a burning ambition to make Edison the most important inventor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.   In \u003ci\u003eEdison\u003c\/i\u003e, science writer David J. Kent (\u003ci\u003eTesla: The Wizard of Electricity\u003c\/i\u003e) tells how the inventor:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFeuded with other great inventors, like Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChanged how the world experienced darkness with the incandescent light bulb\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUsed an elephant named Topsy for a dramatic example of the power of electricity\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEstablished the world’s first modern technology company and first movie studio\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWas awarded over 1,000 patents in the United States alone\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCreated everything from an electrographic voting machine to the phonograph\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003eVividly written and packed with colorful and rare illustrations, \u003ci\u003eEdison: The Inventor of the Modern World\u003c\/i\u003e is the fascinating story of how a self-taught boy from Ohio who loved to invent new gadgets ended up changing the world.","brand":"Fall River Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47042404712688,"sku":"9781435161238","price":9.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781435161238_p0.jpg?v=1763753698","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781435161238","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}