Marc Raboy

On the whole, it would appear that Raboy has produced what is going to be the standard biography of Guglielmo Marconi for sometime to come, and provides the reader with an almost month by month accounting of the man's activities, besides putting Marconi into context.

As might be expected, most of the page-count is devoted to Marconi's adventures in technology, as his tinkering as a young man ultimately led to the wireless revolution, and then to his never ending battle to defend his intellectual property. In regards to what Marconi's greatest talent might have been, Raboy suggests that it was an ability to strip away extraneous matters and relentlessly pursue the main avenues of advance to a successful conclusion; regardless of the cost.

However, the main reason I wanted to read this work is that Raboy deals forthrightly with the more dubious elements of Marconi's life; particularly how he was an early adherent of Mussolini's Fascist regime, and was ultimately an uncompromising defender of Italy's conquest of Ethiopia. That this came to pass might simply be a commentary on how as much as Marconi was a great example of a cosmopolitan Edwardian figure, he was also a product of Italy's struggle for great power status. Raboy further observes that, for all the individualist and unconventional elements of Marconi's personality, when it came to politics he was very much a conformist, if for no other reason that it was going to take access to political power to implement his technological vision. Marconi might have had some personal reservations with Mussolini's policies, but that didn't prevent him from taking prestigious positions in the regime and executing Fascist policies. It was only when the realization dawned that war between Rome and London was in the cards that reality set in for the man as to what he had ultimately signed up for. Marconi's death in 1937 was probably a mercy.… (meer)

On June 5, 1944 Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech announcing the fall of Rome to Allied forces. Seeking to distinguish Benito Mussolini and his supporters from the rest of the Italian people, he lauded the many contributions Italians made to civilization. Among the great Italians he singled out by name in this context was Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor who won a Nobel Prize for his contributions to the development of radio technology. It was a reflection of the stature he possessed as a man whose name was synonymous with the dominant communications medium of the era.

One of the great achievements of Marc Raboy's book is in conveying the many facets of Marconi's life, one that was lived, often simultaneously, in the worlds of science, business, and politics. The son of a well-to-do Italian landowner and his Irish wife, Marconi developed an early interest in science. Interested in the recently-announced discovery of "Hertzian waves," he experimented with using them for wireless communication, and in his early twenties he succeeded. Moving to England, he soon became an international celebrity with the demonstration of his device, and he soon launched a company that at one point threatened to establish a monopoly on usage of the airwaves. within a few short years Marconi was an international celebrity, one whose name was synonymous with progress. This would be later exploited by Mussolini, who roped a willing Marconi into supporting his Fascist regime.

Benefiting from the release of some previously unavailable papers, Raboy succeeds in providing a comprehensive life of Marconi set withing the context of his age. It's a considerably rich book, full of details of Marconi's inventions and his business activities, yet one that manages to remain remarkably readable as well. It is difficult to imagine that Raboy's life of Marconi will be bettered -- though if it is, it would have to be by a truly remarkable book.… (meer)