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摘要

Re Time's special issue on Thomas Edison [July 5]: Jill Jonnes tries her best to glamorize Edison, but he did not "reluctantly" give in to the AC powering system. He quarreled bitterly to topple it. His propaganda campaign on the "dangers" of AC, begun in the late 1880s, included publicly electrifying animals to death, spreading disinformation and hyping the electric chair, despite his qualms about capital punishment. In fact, the parallels between Edison and modern-day oil tycoons are uncanny.