IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2013 - 7
BOOK REVIEW
CASEY CANFIELD
When the Lights Went Out
By David Nye. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 2010, 304 pages
D
avid Nye's newest book, When the Lights
sublimity, and as memory, aestheticized in photoWent Out, is an examination of how the
graphs." Each chapter explores a different element of
role of blackouts in America has evolved
this evolution in semi-chronological order.
from a minor inconvenience to a potential
The word "blackout" was initially used to describe
terrorist plot. He contends that blackouts are a "break
a wartime drill to artificially cloak a city in darkness
in the flow of social time" that reveal fundamental
during World War II. By the second half of the 20th
truths about the socioeconomic climate and the role
century, a blackout was an unexpected loss of elecof electricity in our lives. However, his concluding
tricity, usually as a result of an accident or natural
chapter on voluntary "greenouts" feels half-hearted
disaster. Blackouts were perceived as "natural acciwithout a discussion of technology-focused initiadents" that were an unavoidable reality of a large,
tives such as smart grid to improve grid reliability and
inter-connected electrical grid.
encourage efficiency.
One of Nye's main points is that the reaction to
Nye, a Professor of American Studies at the
a blackout reveals a great deal about "the trajectory
university of Southern Denmark, has
of American history'" In a familwritten multiple books on the social
iar analysis that others have also
The word
construction of electricity in America,
argued, he focuses on New York City,
including Electrifying America (1990),
which has been the scene of three
"blackout" was
and won nearly every major award from
major blackouts with wide-ranging
initially used
the Society for the History of Technolresponses. There was an overwhelmto describe a
ogy (SHOT). His expertise allows for
ing sense of unity in response to the
wartime drill
a very accessible book that is part hisGreat Northeast Blackout of 1965.
tory of technology, part sociological
Nye reports that the crime rate was
to artificially
analysis, and part lesson in linguistics.
actually lower than normal while
cloak a city in
As Nye explains, electricity has
commuters who were unable to go
darkness during
infiltrated the way we work, live, and
home slept all over the city in pubWorld War II.
even talk. Over the course of the book,
lic spaces ranging from hotel lobbies
he examines blackouts in various,
to train stations. People who experiintersecting ways: "as a disruption
enced the blackout described a sense
of social experience, as a military tactic, as a crisis
of elation at the sudden intimacy of strangers and
in the networked city, as the failure of an engineer"strange beauty" of the city.
ing system, as the outcome of inconsistent political
The reaction to the July 1977 blackout exposed
and economic decisions, as a sudden encounter with
how times had changed. New York City had suffered
from an economic downturn with the loss of more than
600 000 jobs and severe cutbacks in public services.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2013.2259658
Beyond New York, energy prices had increased and fuel
Date of publication: 5 June 2013
Casey Canfield is a Ph.D. Student in Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses
on how consumers understand and learn about home energy use. She is part of the Energy and Behavior Group as well
as the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center. Email: ccanfiel@andrew.cmu.edu.
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE
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SuMMEr 2013
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