Freeberg does an outstanding job of organizing the extremely wide effects of the invention of electric light. One of the joys of learning is finding out things you didn't know you didn't know. He pulls together a rich tapestry of vignettes, anecdotes, pictures, cartoons, stories, and descriptions to help readers become as immersed as possible in the exciting and sometimes precarious early modern era. Not everyone welcomed the new invention, Freeberg reminds us. He astutely portrays the often diverging reactions and reception of different social classes, professions, rural/urban populations, European/American audiences, gas/electric companies, and movements concerning this new invention. Though this is not a biography of Edison, Freeberg smoothly weaves the inventor's character, personality, and temperament in and out of his chapters, exposing Edison's own ambivalence about his world-changing invention. The book whetted my curiosity about how the introduction of electric light completely altered family/home life, rural life, the arts, and government and international affairs. It would take several more volumes to more thoroughly on those areas, but what Freeberg decided to focus on, he excelled at. Cultural history fans will eat this book up.