“Eula Biss writes in such a lyrical way. The first book I read of hers was about the history of vaccinations, On Immunity, which I found helpful and illuminating. I hate misinformation and she makes a case for the social responsibility of public health in that book. This one is more poetic but still personal. She comes from a really mixed family, her take on race is complex and interesting. I like this first section of the book so much because it's so cleverly framed. She talks about the invention of the telephone and it leads on to lynchings and historical and contemporary racism in America. It's not easy. But it is really important.”
Time and Distance Overcome
“Of what use is such an invention?” the New York World asked shortly after Alexander Graham Bell first demonstrated his telephone in 1876. The world was not waiting for the telephone.
Bell's financial backers asked him not to work on his new invention because it seemed too dubious an investment. The idea on which the telephone depended - the idea that every home in the country could be connected by a vast network of wires suspended from poles set an average of ioo feet apart - seemed far more unlikely than the idea that the human voice could be transmitted through a wire.
