Cristina O'Hanlon's Reviews > Electric City: The Lost History of Ford and Edison’s American Utopia

This was a super interesting history of the mile long Wilson Dam on the Tennessee River that follows the project from its inception during WWI to power nitrate factories for munitions, through the private-public battle for post-war ownership between Ford and the federal government that throws into contrast different ideas about how to manage natural resources to improve our collective quality of life, and to its eventual management by TVA and impact on holding private power companies accountable on rate setting.

I really enjoyed this read and appreciated how the writing style and level of detail brought the history to life. There were some interesting mediations toward the end on what an alternative history in which Ford won his bid could’ve looked like, and I think that could’ve been cool to see integrated more throughout the book (especially given Ford’s anti-semitism and ties with Nazis, since those ideas obviously shape the way his electric “utopia” would’ve played out). Everything in the TVA section was so interesting that I wish it was twice as long and covered more of the organization’s unique structure. Overall, this book did a great job of making a little known piece of history accessible.