David E. Nye is Senior Research Fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute and the History of Science and Technology program at the University of Minnesota and Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark. His other books published by the MIT Press includeElectrifying America and American Technological Sublime. He was awarded the Leonardo da Vinci Medal in 2005 and was knighted by the Queen of Denmark in 2013.
David Nye casts his bright light on everything from assembly lines to washing machines, from the plummeting price of urban electricity to the usefulness of electric incubators in chicken farming... Mr. Nye succeeds not simply because he knows his technology, but also because be understands the complexity of American culture... [He] has the breadth of knowledge and the good sense to see the significance in paintings like Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks'... and to weave such observations into the very armature of his argument that electricity transformed not only American life but the American self --John R. Stilgoe, New York Times Book Review