André Millard is a professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of Beatlemania: Technology, Business, and Teen Culture in Cold War America and Equipping James Bond: Guns, Gadgets, and Technological Enthusiasm.

An informative business history, illuminating Edison the businessman, industrialist, and manager, showing why he succeeded in some areas and failed in others and how he 'straddled the craft culture of the preindustrial age and the industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century' Journal of American History Millard modestly calls this book 'an advance party crossing the vast stretches of the Edison archives.' That it may be, yet his analysis of the rise and decline of the West Orange laboratory is not likely to be superseded. American Historical Review For anyone wishing to expand, in an accessible yet scholarly way, his or her understanding of this uniquely American icon, this is an excellent point of departure. -- Matthew Hill Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 2008

• LIst of Tables and FiguresPreface1. The Largest Laboratory Extant2. The Machine Shop Culture3. The Business of Innovation4. The Phonograph: A Case Study in Research and Development5. Edison's Laboratory and the Electrical industry6. Diversification in the 1890s7. Moving Pictures8. An Industrial Empire9. Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated10. The Diamond Disc11. The Rise of the Organization12. Business and technology: The Dictating Machine13. The Impending Conflict14. The End of an Era15. The Last YearsEpilogueNotesIndexBooks in Series