Heroes, Herds and Hysteresis in Technological History: Thomas Edison and ‘The Battle of the Systems’ Reconsidered

The history of this development is worth following—as an example of scientific and technological co-operation, of multiple invention, of progress by an infinitude of small improvements, of creative entrepreneurship, of derived demand and unanticipated consequences. David S. Landes (1969, p. 284) on electric power.