Book Review - Lightning In His Hand

Lightning in His Hand: The Life Story of Nikola Tesla. By Inez Hunt and Wanetta W. Draper. Denver: Sage Books, 1964. Pp. 269. $5.00.

One begins reading this book with high expectations. The authors say that they mean to combine "the many facets which compose the personality of this strange genius of electricity." They propose to blend the views of the scientist, biographer, occultist, and journalist for a "full understanding." This objective is a worthy one, but regrettably the authors do not succeed.

They certainly worked hard enough on their research. The bibliography includes a gamut running from Electrical Engineer to Colliers in magazines. The books consulted included Thomas Commerford Martin's The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla, which is fairly technical, and John J. O'Neill's Prodigal Genius. But, as we often tell our students, working hard at something will not necessarily produce good work.

The authors rely heavily on what may be called either occult forces or some type of prevision which Tesla was supposed to have. "As he (Tesla) walked toward the sunset quoting these words (from Goethe's Faust), the idea came like a flash of lightning and the solution to the problem of alternating current motors appeared before him as revelation." We are told this happened six years before he reported his discovery. This type of mysticism is used regularly to explain Tesla's development of ideas. I, for one, do not believe that discoveries are made this way.

The book presents a gross distortion of Tesla and his achievements. The actual development and introduction of the induction motor, Tesla's greatest achievement, is dealt with in a vague fashion. Much mysticism and hazy description are resorted to, and there is very little in the way of solid factual description which could give the reader some idea of the way Tesla did arrive at his discovery. Too much space is devoted to "what might have been if" and to failures. I did not know about his work in Colorado, but then I did not want to be told so much about a project that resulted in failure. On another count, why waste space on an episode in which Tesla did not get the Nobel prize?

I am not sure that this book would have been a good one if the editor had cut more, but I am sure that it would have been much better. The authors succumbed to the temptation to include everything that was interesting rather than selecting what was pertinent to their purpose. A

...