{"title":"Richard F Hirsh","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"technology-and-transformation-in-the-american-electric-utility-industry-book-richard-f-hirsh-9780521364782","title":"Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry","description":"This book illuminates the role of technological stagnation in the decline of the American electric utility industry in the late 1960s and 1970s. Unlike other interpreters of the industry's woes, Professor Hirsh argues that a long and successful history of managing a conventional technology set the stage for the industry's deterioration. After improving steadily for decades, the technology that brought unequalled productivity growth to the industry appeared to stall in the late 1960s, making it impossible to mitigate the economic and regulatory assaults of the 1970s. Unfortunately, most managers did not recognize (or did not want to believe) the severity of the technological problems they faced, and they chose to focus instead on issues (usually financial or public relations) that appeared more manageable. Partly as a result of this lack of attention to technological issues, the industry found itself in the 1980s challenged by the prospects of deregulation and restructuring.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50354898272529,"sku":"CIN0521364787G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52478687772945,"sku":"NLS9780521364782","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52735542493457,"sku":"NIN9780521364782","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521364787.jpg?v=1750943082"},{"product_id":"technology-and-transformation-in-the-american-electric-utility-industry-book-richard-f-hirsh-9780521524711","title":"Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry","description":"This book illuminates the role of technological stagnation in the decline of the American electric utility industry in the late 1960s and 1970s. Unlike other interpreters of the industry's woes, Professor Hirsh argues that a long and successful history of managing a conventional technology set the stage for the industry's deterioration. After improving steadily for decades, the technology that brought unequalled productivity growth to the industry appeared to stall in the late 1960s, making it impossible to mitigate the economic and regulatory assaults of the 1970s. Unfortunately, most managers did not recognize (or did not want to believe) the severity of the technological problems they faced, and they chose to focus instead on issues (usually financial or public relations) that appeared more manageable. Partly as a result of this lack of attention to technological issues, the industry found itself in the 1980s challenged by the prospects of deregulation and restructuring.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50355927712017,"sku":"CIN0521524717G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52402829066513,"sku":"NLS9780521524711","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53099047649553,"sku":"CIN0521524717VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521524717.jpg?v=1751197803"},{"product_id":"power-loss-book-richard-f-hirsh-9780262582193","title":"Power Loss","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the late 1990s, the formerly staid and monopolistic electric utility industry entered an era of freewheeling competition and deregulation, allowing American consumers to buy electricity from any company offering it. In this book, Richard F. Hirsh explains how and why this radical restructuring has occurred. Hirsh starts by describing the successful campaign waged by utility managers in the first decade of the twentieth century to protect their industry from competition. The regulated system that emerged had the unanticipated consequence of endowing utility managers with great political and economic power. Seven decades later, a series of largely unanticipated events, including technological stagnation in traditional generating equipment, the 1973 energy crisis, and the rise of the environmental movement, undermined the managers' control of the system. New players, such as academics, environmental advocates, politicians, and potential competitors, wrested control from power company managers by challenging utilities' standing as natural monopolies and by questioning whether their firms provided universal benefits. In other words, the once-closed system came under increasing pressure to transform itself. Hirsh follows the flow of power as this transformation occurred. He also examines the relationship between technological change and regulation, showing how innovations such as cogeneration and renewable energy technologies stimulated questions about the value of government oversight of the system. And he shows how the increasing prominence of ideas such as conservation, energy efficiency, and free markets helped propel the system toward open competition. Though the new electric utility system is still in its infancy, Hirsh's perceptive account of its birth will help readers think more rationally about its future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50947222929681,"sku":"CIN0262582198VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51325759619345,"sku":"CIN0262582198G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262582198.jpg?v=1750738516"},{"product_id":"glimpsing-an-invisible-universe-book-richard-f-hirsh-9780521312325","title":"Glimpsing an Invisible Universe","description":"Now in paperback, this book deals with the evolution of X-ray astronomy during the initial phases of its development. The story commences in the late 1950s with the discovery of high-energy radiations from beyond the solar system, and is taken through to the point at which X-ray astronomers began exploring questions of broader interest in astronomy. In examining this early period, when scientists acquired fundamental data and the rudiments of theory, the author shows how technical progress, and public policy changes played important roles in advancing the subject. Three transformations of astronomy as a discipline are highlighted: the augmentation of purely optical observations; the emergence of federal funding as the dominant source of financial support; and the greatly altered size and structure of the research community.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52484987093265,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52484988174609,"sku":"NLS9780521312325","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521312325.jpg?v=1759857072"},{"product_id":"power-loss-book-richard-f-hirsh-9780262082730","title":"Power Loss","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the late 1990s, the formerly staid and monopolistic electric utility industry entered an era of freewheeling competition and deregulation, allowing American consumers to buy electricity from any company offering it. In this book, Richard F. Hirsh explains how and why this radical restructuring has occurred. Hirsh starts by describing the successful campaign waged by utility managers in the first decade of the twentieth century to protect their industry from competition. The regulated system that emerged had the unanticipated consequence of endowing utility managers with great political and economic power. Seven decades later, a series of largely unanticipated events, including technological stagnation in traditional generating equipment, the 1973 energy crisis, and the rise of the environmental movement, undermined the managers' control of the system. New players, such as academics, environmental advocates, politicians, and potential competitors, wrested control from power company managers by challenging utilities' standing as natural monopolies and by questioning whether their firms provided universal benefits. In other words, the once-closed system came under increasing pressure to transform itself. Hirsh follows the flow of power as this transformation occurred. He also examines the relationship between technological change and regulation, showing how innovations such as cogeneration and renewable energy technologies stimulated questions about the value of government oversight of the system. And he shows how the increasing prominence of ideas such as conservation, energy efficiency, and free markets helped propel the system toward open competition. Though the new electric utility system is still in its infancy, Hirsh's perceptive account of its birth will help readers think more rationally about its future.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53003471487249,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53003472077073,"sku":"CIN026208273XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780262082730.jpg?v=1767813349"},{"product_id":"powering-american-farms-book-richard-f-hirsh-9781421443621","title":"Powering American Farms","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe untold story of the power industry's efforts to electrify growing numbers of farms in the years before the creation of Depression-era government programs.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinner of the 2025 IEEE William and Joyce Middleton Electrical Engineering History\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven after decades of retelling, the story of rural electrification in the United States remains dramatic and affecting. As textbooks and popular histories inform us, farmers obtained electric service only because a compassionate federal government established the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The agencies' success in raising the standard of living for millions of Americans contrasted with the failure of the greedy big-city utility companies, which showed little interest in the apparently unprofitable nonurban market. Traditional accounts often describe the nation's population as split in two, separated by access to a magical form of energy: just past cities' limits, a bleak, preindustrial class of citizens endured, literally in near darkness at night and envious of their urban cousins, who enjoyed electrically operated lights, refrigerators, radios, and labor-saving appliances.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003ePowering American Farms\u003c\/i\u003e, Richard F. Hirsh challenges the notion that electric utilities neglected rural customers in the years before government intervention. Drawing on previously unexamined resources, Hirsh demonstrates that power firms quadrupled the number of farms obtaining electricity in the years between 1923 and 1933, for example. Though not all corporate managers thought much of the farm business, a cadre of rural electrification advocates established the knowledge base and social infrastructure upon which New Deal organizations later capitalized. The book also suggests that the conventional storyline of rural electrification remains popular because it contains a colorful hero, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and villainous utility magnates, such as Samuel Insull, who make for an engaging—but distorted—narrative.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHirsh describes the evolution of power company managers' thinking in the 1920s and early 1930s—from believing that rural electrification made no economic sense to realizing that serving farmers could mitigate industry-wide problems. This transformation occurred as agricultural engineers in land-grant universities, supported by utilities, demonstrated productive electrical technologies that yielded healthy profits to farmers and companies alike. Gaining confidence in the value of rural electrification, private firms strung wires to more farms than did the REA until 1950, a fact conveniently omitted in conventional accounts. \u003ci\u003ePowering American Farms \u003c\/i\u003ewill interest academic and lay readers of New Deal history, the history of technology, and revisionist historiography.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53099059872017,"sku":"CIN1421443627G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781421443621.jpg?v=1770225801"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-richard-f-hirsh.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}