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The ostensible topic of Seth Shulman's new book, The Telephone Gambit, is how Alexander Graham Bell cheated his way into owning the phone patent. Apparently Bell copied research from his chief rival for the lucrative patent, Elisha Gray. This revelation isn't particularly stunning in our era of patent litigation and IP wackiness, and that's why it's lucky that this new revelation about Bell is almost beside the point. What really stands out in The Telephone Gambit is Shulman's portrait of Bell the futurist, a guy ahead of his time both technologically and entrepreneurially, but also (touchingly) in a freethinking romantic way too. One of the little-known facts about the years leading up to Bell's controversial patent is how distracted he was by an overwhelming crush on one of his female students, Mabel Hubbard. More »
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