Conquering the Electron cover art

Conquering the Electron

The Geniuses, Visionaries, Egomaniacs, and Scoundrels Who Built Our Electronic Age

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Conquering the Electron

By: Derek Cheung, Eric Brach
Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Conquering the Electron offers listeners a true and engaging history of the world of electronics, beginning with the discoveries of static electricity and magnetism and ending with the creation of the smartphone and the iPad.

This book shows the interconnection of each advance to the next on the long journey to our modern-day technologies. Exploring the combination of genius, infighting, and luck that powered the creation of today's electronic age, Conquering the Electron debunks the hero worship so often plaguing the stories of great advances.

Want to know how AT&T's Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology - and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work - and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place.

©2011 Derek Cheung and Eric Brach (P)2020 Tantor Engineering History History & Culture History & Philosophy Physics Science World Technology Innovation

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Degree in a Book: Philosophy cover art
The Cloud Revolution cover art
3D Printing cover art
Silicon cover art
Exceptional Creativity in Science and Technology cover art
Crystal Fire cover art
Electronic Dreams cover art
Energy and Civilization cover art
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street cover art
A Mind for Numbers cover art
Deep Tech cover art
Space Is Open for Business cover art
The Innovators cover art
Fossil Men cover art
When Computing Got Personal cover art
A Brief History of Creation cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Brilliantly written, and clinically narrated. It just flowed and was very listenable.

There was an almost perfect mix of technical detail and storytelling.

Thank you!

Amazing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
unbelievable detail of how the science of it all affected everyone commercially, politically and personally over the last 200 years

science, history and business in one

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Everything electronic in one amazing book. Telegraph, telephone, transistors, television, radio, radar, calculators, computers, consumer electronics, RCA, Intel, Texas Instruments, Sharp, Sony, TSMC etc etc

A perfect book that is precisely detailed with just the right amount of information to do every subject and story justice.

A must-read for anyone interested in electronics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One interesting fact missing from the Magnetron Story is that it was carried as hand luggage across the Atlantic on a passenger liner and not by the Royal Navy.

Fantastic work and performance.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
an excellent book from an author who made a deep research in history and understands phydics

Excellent!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews