Author Interview: Seth Shulman
May 6th, 2009Recently, I reviewed The Telephone Gambit by Seth Shulman. It was a really good read about the history (and controversy) of the invention of the telephone. Luckily for us, Seth agreed to answer a few of my questions.
While researching this book did you find yourself getting angry at Bell for stealing Gray’s idea?
In truth, I never felt particularly angry–more confused and, ultimately, saddened. I think that is partly because the act of researching the subject is very different from reading the amassed evidence all put together. Reading the finished book might have been more likely to get my ire up because the information comes all at once instead of in relatively painstaking bits and pieces.
Why did my high school history book make no mention of Elisha Gray?
One thing I learned from working on this book is that it is relatively amazing how much our high school texts likely got wrong! As I mention in The Telephone Gambit, one historian posited that this is especially true about the history of science and technology: textbook writers spend a good deal of time trying to get the basic science information straight. But for the most part they just parrot the historical tidbits as something of an after thought, often passing along misinformation long since corrected by historians.
Did you come across any resistance while doing the research?
There was less resistance than I might have imagined. Certainly some of the historians I spoke with were highly skeptical of my conclusions at first and partial to the accepted version of history. But most of the folks I dealt with in my research were open minded and interested in the subject once they learned more about it. Interestingly, though, I think the subject matter made it hard to sell the book to a major publisher. One former editor told me that, true or not, readers wouldn’t be interested in my story because “they didn’t want to have one of their heroes taken down a notch.”
Considering there is a massive conspiracy theory community…why is there not a bigger movement of people who believe Bell was a thief? Shouldn’t the internet be crawling with these stories?
I think there is a fair amount about the case on the web by this point but I really can’t say why more diehard conspiratorial types haven’t latched on to the story. Now maybe if there had been a murder, or some UFOs…?!
Like you, I am an invention/innovation nerd…which I’ve found is not a great conversational piece. What do people say to you when you tell them what you write about for a living?
Hey! Speak for yourself. I am NOT a nerd but rather an EXTREMELY hip and well-adjusted person (who just happens to be really interested in invention and innovation)! The truth is I’ve had a lot of fun writing about things that I’m pretty passionate about and it’s a fairly diverse list. I’ve thought for a long time that technological change is one of the really big and underreported stories of my lifetime and it has made me more interested in learning about how it occurs today and how it occurred in the past…
What super awesome invention/innovation are you going to tackle next?
Next year, I’ve been offered the chance to do research at Amherst College. I’m going to focus on a few of the many efforts now underway to innovate to enhance global sustainability and solve problems for the developing world. I’ll have a bit of a travel budget so I hope to see some exciting work in person and find some great stories to tell about using technology in creative and surprising ways.
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