Books by Richard Hirsh – Electrification in History

Powering American Farms: The Overlooked Origins of Rural Electrification (2022)

The untold story of the power industry’s efforts to electrify growing numbers of farms in the years before the creation of Depression-era government programs.

“Decisively revising the dominant electrification narrative, Hirsh’s richly documented account is more complex and nuanced than the New Deal tale that has for too long been seen as the last word on the subject. His argument also rests on a much deeper documentary foundation than the books he so effectively undermines. Emphatically recommended.” –David E. Nye, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, author of Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880–1940

“Putting forth numerous strands of evidence to complicate, and in some ways contradict, the narrative that the federal government heroically brought electric power to farms across the country, Hirsh’s work is an important contribution to multiple disciplines. It’s both a corrective and an ideal tutorial on how to address interesting historical questions.” –Julie A. Cohn, Center for Public History, University of Houston, author of The Grid: Biography of an American Technology

“Hirsh understands that sound revisionism consists not in replacing one myth with another but rather digging deeper into the material to produce a fuller, more complex story with enough detail to illuminate and clarify its context. This insightful book combines thorough research with full and informative documentation, logical organization, and solid writing.” –Maury Klein, University of Rhode Island, author of The Power Makers: Steam, Electricity, and the Men Who Invented Modern America

“Powering American Farms upends conventional accounts of rural electrification in the early twentieth-century United States. By shifting our sights from the New Deal to the 1920s, Hirsh shows how agricultural engineers at land grant colleges collaborated with the managers of private power companies to help bring America’s farmers on-line.” –Richard R. John, Columbia University, author of Network Nation: Invention American Telecommunications

More information at Johns Hopkins University Press website.

Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System (1999)

In the late 1990s, the formerly staid and monopolistic electric utility industry entered an era of freewheeling competition and deregulation, allowing American consumers to buy electricity from any company offering it. In this book, Richard F. Hirsh explains how and why this radical restructuring has occurred.

“Hirsh’s well-documented argument about ‘technological stasis’ commands the attention of all concerned with what has gone wrong with America’s power industry. Beyond this, his blend of managerial, technological, economic, and cultural analysis takes us to a new plateau of understanding.” –Thomas K. McCraw, Harvard Business School

“This book, with its cross-disciplinary theme of ‘technological stasis,’ offers an innovative and compelling explanation of the extraordinary problems that have befallen America’s electric utilities. Regulators, utility managers, activist citizens, and historians will find an important analysis, as well as a good story.” –Richard H.K. Vietor, Harvard Business School

“Insightful, thoughtful, and understandable, Power Loss explores the origins of the change swith a historical perspective. A must-read for anyone trying to understand what is happening to the American electric utility industry. The principles and framework of technological and social systems used by the author reveal that the story of this industry has broader implications than just to the making of electricity. This book makes a lot of pieces fit together.” –Carl J. Weinberg, Chair, Weinberg Associates, and former Manager of Research and Development, Pacific Gas and Electric Company

“For history buffs and policy wonks, Hirsh delivers an absorbing story of the changing U.S. electricity sector. Power Loss provides a well-research map of the technology and policy trails that underpin today’s industry reforms.” –Jan Hamrin, Executive Director, Center for Resource Solutions.

More information at MIT Press website.

Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry (1989)

After improving steadily for decades, the technology that brought unequalled productivity growth to the American electric utility industry appeared to stall in the late 1960s, making it impossible to mitigate the difficult economic and regulatory assaults of the 1970s. Unfortunately, most managers did not recognize the severity of the technological problems they faced and chose to focus instead on issues that appeared more manageable. Partly as a result of this lack of attention to technological issues, the industry found itself challenged by the prospects of deregulation and restructuring in the 1980s. This book focuses on the role of technological stagnation in the decline of the industry and argues that a long and successful history of managing a conventional technology set the stage for the industry’s deterioration. (From CUP website)

More information at Cambridge University Press website.

Glimpsing an Invisible Universe: The Emergence of X-Ray Astronomy (1983)

Now in paperback, this book deals with the evolution of X-ray astronomy during the initial phases of its development. The story commences in the late 1950s with the discovery of high-energy radiations from beyond the solar system, and is taken through to the point at which X-ray astronomers began exploring questions of broader interest in astronomy. In examining this early period, when scientists acquired fundamental data and the rudiments of theory, the author shows how technical progress, and public policy changes played important roles in advancing the subject. Three transformations of astronomy as a discipline are highlighted: the augmentation of purely optical observations; the emergence of federal funding as the dominant source of financial support; and the greatly altered size and structure of the research community. (From Amazon.com website)

“Glimpsing an Invisible Universe is a very readable and useful addition to the small but growing body of serious literature on the history of the space sciences. Hirsh’s review and analysis of the early years of X-ray astronomy provide, in excellent fashion, extensive documentary evidence of how this entirely new way of looking at the universe began –who was involved, and what the problems were, both scientific and technical. He emphasizes the social structure of the new enterprise and shows how it changed in character when funding patterns changed, both in the immediate post-Sputnik era and in the late 1960s, as funding diminished.” –David H. DeVorkin, reviewed in Technology and Culture 26, no. 1 (Jan. 1985): 132-34.

More information at Amazon.com website.