The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness

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Synopsis
Finalist for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize&“Meticulously researched, crackling with insights, and rich in novelistic detail&” (Steve Silberman), this&“provocative, sensitive, beautifully written biography&” (Sylvia Nasar) tells the true—and troubling—story of Alexander Graham Bell&’s quest to end deafness.&“Researched and written through the Deaf perspective, this marvelously engaging history will have us rethinking the invention of the telephone.&” —Jaipreet Virdi, PhD, author of Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that&’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine.The Invention of Miracles takes a &“stirring&” (The New York Times Book Review), &“provocative&” (The Boston Globe), &“scrupulously researched&” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) new look at an American icon, revealing the astonishing true genesis of the telephone and its connection to another, far more disturbing legacy of Bell&’s: his efforts to suppress American Sign Language. Weaving together a dazzling tale of innovation with a moving love story, the book offers a heartbreaking account of how a champion can become an adversary and an enthralling depiction of the deaf community&’s fight to reclaim a once-forbidden language.Katie Booth has been researching this story for more than fifteen years, poring over Bell&’s papers, Library of Congress archives, and the records of deaf schools around America. But she&’s also lived with this story for her entire life. Witnessing the damaging impact of Bell&’s legacy on her family would set her on a path that overturned everything she thought she knew about language, power, deafness, and the telephone.
Copyright:
2021

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
416 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781501167102
Related ISBNs:
9781501167119
Publisher:
Simon & Schuster
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Katie Booth
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Science, Disability-Related, Biographies and Memoirs, Technology, Social Studies
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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