Summary

Blackouts--whether they result from military planning, network failure, human error, or terrorism--offer snapshots of electricity's increasingly central role in American society.

Where were you when the lights went out? At home during a thunderstorm? During the Great Northeastern Blackout of 1965? In California when rolling blackouts hit in 2000? In 2003, when a cascading power failure left fifty million people without electricity? We often remember vividly our time in the dark. In When the Lights Went Out , David Nye views power outages in America from 1935 to the present not simply as technical failures but variously as military tactic, social disruption, crisis in the networked city, outcome of political and economic decisions, sudden encounter with sublimity, and memories enshrined in photographs. Our electrically lit-up life is so natural to us that when the lights go off, the darkness seems abnormal.

Nye looks at America's development of its electrical grid, which made large-scale power failures possible and a series of blackouts from military blackouts to the "greenout" (exemplified by the new tradition of "Earth Hour"), a voluntary reduction organized by environmental organizations.

Blackouts, writes Nye, are breaks in the flow of social time that reveal much about the trajectory of American history. Each time one occurs, Americans confront their essential condition--not as isolated individuals, but as a community that increasingly binds itself together with electrical wires and signals.

Publisher's Weekly Review

This captivating book zooms in with a telescopic intensity on America's blackouts, from the 1930s to the massive 2003 Northeast power failure that had many suspecting terrorism; anyone who reads this history will be unsurprised to find it was actually due to an over-burdened power grid. Beyond familiar individual frustrations, a blackout can cause major social and economic disturbance, signal political problems, and represent a massive failure of infrastructure; American history professor Nye contextualizes power failures in the U.S. as the result of long-term energy buildup and overuse. Nye examines how a "utopian" vision of electrical convenience at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair-television sets, movie equipment, a "clothes conditioning closet," the home computer-became law ("in building codes and in the ¿war on poverty' electricity became a legal requirement akin to a natural right") and how, when that right is denied, utopia can give way to chaos. Nye captures the disastrous 1977 New York City blackout in its broad causes, effects, and implications, as well as its small, frightening details: "Guests of the Algonquin Hotel found that electronic locks had sealed their doors." Other chapters discuss rolling blackouts and activist-driven "greenouts." Fans of urban studies will find this text rich with insight and information. 26 illus. (Mar.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

Choice Review

Twenty years after his Electrifying America (CH, Jun'91, 28-5853), Nye (Univ. of Southern Denmark), a well-known historian of technology, turns his attention to the cultural impact of failures in the power system. He is especially interested in the social constructions that arise during periods of artificial darkness. For instance, electrical failures were common in the technology's early days, but these outages were mitigated by alternative power sources. During WW II, blackouts were patriotic responses to threats. In the postwar era, electricity was so pervasive that blackouts, though relatively uncommon, were a serious disruption when they occurred. As capacity plateaued with deregulation in the 1980s, outages once again became frequent. Society's ability to tolerate the loss of electricity, however, has decreased since the early 20th century because people are so much more dependent on the technology. The book closes with a look at alternative energies. Nye focuses on the US, particularly New York City and the Northeast, but he also discusses developments in Europe and indicates emerging issues in India and China. The volume is well edited. Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and public libraries, all levels. A. K. Ackerberg-Hastings University of Maryland University College