American Lucifers

“As we face another great transition, from fossil fuels to alternative energies, Zallen’s narrative is timely—echoing in the high human and environmental costs of dramas playing out in Nigerian oilfields and the smog of Indian cities.”—David E. Nye, Nature

“Zallen has written a truly innovative book that will surely have scholars and lay readers alike burning the candle at both ends.”—Technology and Culture

“Zallen writes beautifully. He tells his story through vividly worded, richly researched tales. . . . To remind us . . . that every part of economic life connects us to the work of others, and that work can be very grim and very dark indeed.”—The New England Quarterly

“Written clearly, with dashes of literary flair. . . . The connections it draws . . . show lighting to be a useful frame within which to understand how global trade, regional commerce, and professional and domestic labor were coordinated in the century or so before electrification.”—CHOICE

“American Lucifers is a methodologically ingenious, elegantly written labor history of the light-generating industries that preceded the electric light. . . . Its incisive, empathetic investigation into the daily lives of the workers who bore the costs of technological innovation makes it a unique, revelatory, and highly memorable study of the profoundly transformative effects of lighting technologies.”—Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“Readers of Jeremy Zallen’s superb history of illumination will gain a new appreciation for the origins of artificial light. . . . Zallen uses clear, often poetic, prose to focus on the labor required to bring illumination into the modern era, with a healthy respect for the sweat and suffering that process required.”—Journal of Southern History

“Conventional histories of lighting celebrate technological progress, but Zallen’s inspired and original study illuminates some darker corners of American history. . . . American Lucifers provides a powerful analysis through its copious information, but Zallen’s imaginative and extensive use of primary sources makes it exceptionally captivating.”—Ambix

“An ambitious book. . . . handsomely produced, with illustrations and maps, and will appeal principally to history buffs.”—Library Journal

“American Lucifers warrants great acclaim. . . . [For] the expert craft of Zallen’s history, engaging writing, extremely thorough source work . . . and the message it so clearly delivers: that when we literally illuminate our own spaces of experience, we also illuminate a crucial opportunity to make the world’s socioeconomic systems more equitable and more sustainable.”—North Carolina Historical Review

“Looking past the physical properties of artificial light, the march of science is retold as a story of struggles between the workers and owners who converted matter to energy, with an emphasis on the toil and blood that made and unmade their worlds. Zallen redirects our attention to the vital social relationships at the core of human existence.” —Vincent Brown, author of Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War