Tube: The Invention of Television

As the authors say in their preface, ""[W]ho invented television? Nobody knows."" But the genius of several individuals coalesced into today's modern TV. In this personality-driven book, the authors look at the key players and their contributions: John Logie Bair, the eccentric Scot who went from marketing hemorrhoid cream to making the first TV in Britain; Vladimir Zworykin, the Russian immigrant who blazed the trail for RCA; and Ernst Alexanderson, who led RCA to the promised land but lost out to Zworykin. But the two stars are Philo T. Farnsworth and David Sarnoff. Farnsworth was the boy-genius who first visualized TV as a 14-year-old and invented one of the first totally electronic TVs, only to be defeated by corporate in-fighting. ""General"" David Sarnoff, a Jewish immigrant on New York City's Lower East Side, rose to become the head of RCA, leading it to the vanguard because of his keen perceptions of both radio and television. David Fisher, a professor of cosmochemistry at the University of Miami, and Marshal Joe Fisher, a freelance writer, offer an engrossing, in-depth look at the history of the medium. Photos not seen by PW. 35,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.)