The Men Who Built America - History Channel

Saw it when it was first aired, and yes it is very good.

When I heard about it was a bit worried as it could really be spun as a constant "These men were perfect and awesome and capitalism is the holiest of holies!" or "these guys were all terrible monsters and everything they did was evil."

Fortunately they split the difference pretty well and made both an entertaining show with good information.

Tarrant_sl said:

I'm glad they gave Tesla the credit he deserved as well, dude never seems to get an respect in these types of shows.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was very surprised how much they got into Edison/Tesla and the... unpleasantness surrounding it, considering that neither were actual industrialists.

It was interesting to see how in most of cases their focus changed from being all about efficiency and the bottom line to a more philanthropic outlook.

What surprised me about Tesla was how he simply gave up his patent rights to Westinghouse to prevent it from going down, I'm not sure whether he saw Westinghouse linked with his technology or if it was payback for having given a chance when he first started, either was it was a great show that displayed both sides of history.

I think some of them, like Carnegie at least, realized he fucked lots of people pretty bad by his actions. So turning it all to charity efforts in the end was a way to ease his conscious I think.

Tesla, on the other hand, I think he was a genuine futurist, someone who cared more about advancing humanity than getting rich off of it, so when it came down to it was willing to give up on the cash. This was also shown when he had the absurd idea to try to beam everyone everywhere free electricity through the air like a nutter.

Or at least that's what I'd like to believe.

Telsa was a massive genius, but he was never a capitalist in the sense Edison was. Edison had better marketing chops. When people called Steve Jobs a modern Edison, they are speaking more to the fact that he had a very controlling personality, but also enough vision and marketing skills to make the public really want the products which would go on to change society (which is Edison in a nutshell) vs. being an inventor (which Steve Jobs wasn't really when compared to Edison). To use the same Apple analogy, Tesla would be more like a Steve Wozniak.

Anyways, regarding the show, it was pretty interesting to learn more about how J.P. Morgan was so instrumental in getting electricity up and running for the nation. It was kind of like a perfect storm: A brand new technology and a dude that is so rich he bailed out the United States intersecting at the right point in history.

I enjoyed the hell out of this show it was very well informed they didnt carebear how these people got there power wealth and control over there industry. History channel. Doing something well and it was about history

Let me know if they do a section over Rudolf Diesel. I'd be curious to know the official historian-take on his death. I say Rockefeller had him iced!

How far into the show do aliens come in?

Very enjoyable show, only the Carnegie story seemed to drag a bit. I wish there was a bit more time for Tesla too!