内容简介

　　爱迪生时至今日仍是蜚声国际的科学家，他设计、制造、构建了世界上第一个白炽灯供电照明系统并为其提供动力。那是1882年9月的一个夜晚，随着他按下开关，如无数颗流光溢彩的珠宝闪耀的光芒照射着美国曼哈顿。

　　他为人类照亮黑夜，点亮创新之光。“我从12岁起就再也没听到鸟儿歌唱”，这位近乎失聪的天才发明了250种与声音相关的装置，除白炽灯泡外还拥有263项照明技术专利，为1093项发明成功申请了专利。如果他为给医生使用的X射线荧光镜也申请专利，那么就会再增加一项。他还是哲学家、未来学家、化学家、植物学家、战时国防顾问、100多家公司的创始人，只有被年龄压倒时，他创新的车轮才会减速。

　　在这本书之前，爱迪生的女儿马德琳曾经抱怨：“我至今没有看到一部令人满意的完整刻画父亲的传记。人们总是过分强调他做过什么事，却很少有人知道他是一个什么样的人。”

　　这本书由普利策奖、美国国家图书奖获奖传记作家埃德蒙·莫里斯基于托马斯·爱迪生国家历史公园中保存的约500万页原始文件，历经长达7年的阅读研究创作而成。他还得到爱迪生被托管的家庭文件访问特权，包括爱迪生曾外孙所藏的家族档案，甚至还有多年来被尘封的爱迪生给第二位妻子的情书。这本书首次详细讲述了爱迪生84年的人生和成就，首次摒弃了认为爱迪生和尼古拉·特斯拉之间存在敌意的阴谋论，并提出了他们互相欣赏的依据。全书既描绘出爱迪生的经典形象，也展现了他较少为人所知的其他面孔。他不仅是专注、勤奋的天才发明家，也是宠爱妻子的丈夫、严厉的父亲、无情的老板、自诩有商业天赋却常常濒临破产的企业家、秉持进步主义理念的老共和党人。

　　作者简介·

　　[美]埃德蒙·莫里斯（Edmund Morris）

　　普利策奖、美国国家图书奖获奖传记作家。他的第一本书《西奥多·罗斯福的崛起》（The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt）获得了1980年的普利策奖和美国国家图书奖。《罗斯福王》（Theodore Rex）于2001年获得《洛杉矶时报》传记图书奖。他是美国总统里根授权的传记作家，在里根任期内，莫里斯享有自由出入白宫的权利并撰写了畅销书《荷兰人：罗纳德·里根回忆录》（Dutch:A Memoir of Ronald Reagan）。他与同为传记作家的西尔维娅·朱克斯·莫里斯结婚52年。埃德蒙·莫里斯于2019年去世，这本《点亮黑夜——爱迪生传》是他生前的最后一部传记作品。

Content introduction

Edison is still an internationally renowned scientist who designed, manufactured, built and powered the world's first incandescent lighting system. It was a September night in 1882, and as he pushed the switch, the light of countless flowery jewels lit up Manhattan.

He illuminates the night for mankind and illuminates the light of innovation. "I haven't heard birds sing since I was 12 years old," said the near-deaf genius, who invented 250 sound-related devices, held 263 patents on lighting technology in addition to the incandescent light bulb, and successfully patented 1,093 inventions. If he also applied for a patent on the X-ray fluoroscope used by doctors, another would be added. He was also a philosopher, a futurist, a chemist, a botanist, a wartime defense consultant, and the founder of more than 100 companies, whose wheels of innovation slowed only when age overwhelmed them.

Before the book, Edison's daughter Madeline had complained: "I have not yet seen a satisfactory and complete biography of my father. There's too much emphasis on what he did, and not enough on what he was."

The book was created by Pulitzer Prize-winning National Book Award winning biographer Edmund Morris after seven years of reading and research based on approximately five million pages of original documents preserved in Thomas Edison National Historical Park. He was also given privileged access to Edison's family papers, which had been held in trust, including family archives held by Edison's great-grandson, and even love letters from Edison to his second wife that had lain dormant for years. The book provides the first detailed account of Edison's 84 years of life and achievements, and for the first time dispels conspiracy theories about the animosity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and lays out the basis for their mutual admiration. The book paints a classic picture of Edison, as well as other, lesser-known faces. Not only was he a dedicated, hard-working genius inventor, but he was also a doting husband, a strict father, a ruthless boss, a self-professed business genius who was often on the verge of bankruptcy, and an old Republican with progressive ideas.

About the Author ·

[US] Edmund Morris

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning biographer. His first book, "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1980. Theodore Rex won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Biography in 2001. He is the authorized biographer of President Ronald Reagan, and during the Reagan administration, Morris had unfettered access to the White House and wrote the best-selling Dutch:A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. He was married for 52 years to fellow biographer Sylvia Jukes Morris. Edmund Morris died in 2019, and this book Lights Up the Night: A Biography of Edison is his last biographical work.