Monday, January 28, 2008

The Ultimate Wiretap

The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret

Seth Shulman closely examines the race to build the first telephone and uncovers potential bombshells with The Telephone Gambit. Although Alexander Graham Bell is widely accepted as the father of the telephone (despite the fact that rival inventor Elisha Gray submitted a similar claim the same day Bell filed his patent), Schulman provides intriguing evidence questioning if the scales were deliberately tipped in Alexander's favor. Was the venerable inventor party to theft from Gray's own research?

While researching Alexander Graham Bell at MIT's Dibner Institute, Seth Shulman scrutinized Bell's journals and within them he found the smoking gun, a hint of deeply buried historical intrigue. Delving further, Shulman unearthed the surprising story behind the invention of the telephone: a tale of romance, corruption, and unchecked ambition.

Bell furtively—and illegally—copied part of Elisha Gray's invention in the race to secure what would become the most valuable U.S. patent ever issued. book