Warming up to Winston

So at first I found him a little too obtuse, and a little too British, but the more I read him, the more I find to sink my teeth into.

I think we have a tendency to idealize both political history and scientific history. Certainly my own recollection of the invention of the telephone was a romanticized version of "Come here, Mr. Watson, I need you" (probably a relic of 4th grade science instruction). The reality is much more nuanced. I was struck by the idea that Alexander Graham Bell's "amateur status is in complete contrast to the way in which things are done these days, not the least the mighty research laboratories that bore his name." When I worked in telecommunications many moons ago, our company occasionally hired Bell Labs veterans. They were respected indeed in our company; recently I read an article lamenting the lack of industrial research such as that which used to come out of Bell Labs and Xerox's Palo Alto Reasearch Center (PARC) , to name a couple. Today the tradition is being renewed by Google and Microsoft research departments.

I was ignorant that Western Electric, which manufactured for AT&T for many years, was founded by Bell's rival, Elisha Gray--both men and their companies apparently profited nicely from their agreement. The rather sordid legal battles and backroom negotiations described in the text actually made me feel that the era we're living through now is not so unique. This is somehow comforting. Perhaps we've been here before after all.