The Telephone Gambit is journalist Seth Shulman's chronicle of his delvings into history and a remarkable tale of intrigue and deceit at the heart of the telephone invention story.
While researching for a book on Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, Shulman ponders Bell's great imaginative leap from his telegraphic research to a working model of the telephone. Curious, he studies Bell's hastily drawn diagram of the telephone and later discovers its indisputable source: the "secret" caveat filing of rival telegraphic genius Elisha Gray at the U.S. Patent Office.
What follows is an interesting evaluation of the motives, means and opportunities behind one of the boldest thefts in the history of science, and Shulman's thoughts on what this says about our accepted wisdom.
All in all, it's a quick and very pleasant read to stimulate the thought. While some might appreciate a more "academic" treatment of the material, I found this journalistic approach related better to a modern lay-historian trying to understand the past. I freely recommend this to anyone with interests in the history of science or inventions.
Originally posted @ LibraryThing on March 25th, 2008.
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