This is probably the most comprehensive extant book on the history of early television technology. Abramson's exhaustive research over many years (documented in the extensive and often chatty footnotes) covers worldwide developments and patents in the many technologies that made TV workable. Much of the writing about the early decades is rather turbid with patent language, but that of the rapid developments in the 1930s is actually exciting reading at times. Still, it is not easy stuff for the non-technical reader. TV engineers will find it just sufficiently technical to whet the appetite for more data (often available from the footnotes or the large bibliography). Curiously, for a book devoted to a visual medium, the photographs tend to be quite murky. And why so little information on Allen B. DuMont, a major force in the development of practical display tubes and TV receivers? Despite these lapses, this book is an indispensible part of the canon of technological histories

This is a technological biography of the man who came to be known as the "father" of the technology he worked on for much of his life -- television. In many places Zworykin the man is displaced by the work he was engaged in. However, those are actually the most interesting and best-written parts of the book, sometimes becoming almost exciting reading. The chapters on Zworykin's early life in Russia tend to plod, even when recounting his adventures during the Russian Revolution.

Abramson is the principal television history researcher in the US , and his work is exceptionally detailed and as even-handed as any human can make it. He comes down on the side of Zworykin in the "who invented television" question, and has compelling data to back it up, but is careful to give credit where it's due to each of the many inventors who contributed to the technology. Abramson's biggest fault as a writer is that he loves his research too much, and includes EVERYTHING, to the detriment of narrative flow. The footnotes section is well over 10% of the book, and is interesting in its own right.

Despite the sometimes-clumsy prose, this is a fine book that illuminates the life of Zworykin and the history of early television technology.