An her recently published book Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, Jane Brox presents a retelling of the social history of lighting. A retelling that is both helped and limited by the author's distance from the underlying technology. Helped because the view is that of the interested and capable non-specialist; limited because of the inevitable tincturing by uncertainty and wariness. Brox uses secondary sources exclusively and thus cannot but produce something that is largely derivative. Nevertheless, the style is comfortable, the vocabulary that of the general reading public, the bare facts embellished with reasonably imagined and engaging examples from historical daily life, and the book is offered by a major publishing house [1]. As such, it is both a bellwether for and influence on the public perception of lighting and should be read by lighting professionals.
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