History Book Club

We will meet on Monday, January 8 at 1:00pm in the Library’s Field Room. We are reading Hedy’s Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a remarkable story of science history: how a ravishing film star and an avant-garde composer invented spread-spectrum radio, the technology that made wireless phones, GPS systems, and many other devices possible.

Beginning at a Hollywood dinner table, Hedy’s Folly tells a wild story of innovation that culminates in U.S. patent number 2,292,387 for a “secret communication system.” Along the way Rhodes weaves together Hollywood’s golden era, the history of Vienna, 1920s Paris, weapons design, music, a tutorial on patent law and a brief treatise on transmission technology. Narrated with the rigor and charisma we’ve come to expect of Rhodes, it is a remarkable narrative adventure about spread-spectrum radio’s genesis and unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world.

Copies of the book will be available for pick-up at the library

History Book Club will meet on the second Monday of the month at 1:00 pm. Participants will read nonfiction books on American history and meet to discuss. Museum Curator, Amy Campanaro, will facilitate the discussion and place historical topics in local context when appropriate. For more information, please email [email protected].

Register here