The extraordinary, unknown story of two giants of American history—Henry Ford and Thomas Edison—and their attempt to create an electric-powered city of tomorrow on the Tennessee River

During the roaring twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country's poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's “Detroit of the South” would be ten times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society, introducing mass commuting by car, use a new kind of currency called “energy dollars,” and have the added benefit (from Ford and Edison's view) of crippling the growth of socialism.

The whole audacious scheme almost came off, with Southerners rallying to support what became known as the Ford Plan. But while some saw it as a way to conjure the future and reinvent the South, others saw it as one of the biggest land swindles of all time. They were all true.

Electric City is a rich chronicle of the time and the social backdrop, and offers a fresh look at the lives of the two men who almost saw the project to fruition, the forces that came to oppose them, and what rose in its stead: a new kind of public corporation called the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal. This is a history for a wide audience, including readers interested in American history, technology, politics, and the future.

本书讲述了美国历史上的两位巨人——亨利•福特（Henry Ford）和托马斯•爱迪生（Thomas Edison）——试图在田纳西河上建造一座未来电力城市的非凡而又不为人知的故事。

在风起云涌的20世纪20年代，两位美国商界备受尊敬、颇有影响力的人提议把美国最贫穷的地区之一改造成一座梦想中的科技大都市，一个由小农场、大工厂和实验室共同组成的闪亮天堂。亨利•福特和托马斯•爱迪生计划中的“南方底特律”将有曼哈顿的十倍大，由可再生能源驱动，没有空气污染。它将重塑美国社会，将大规模的汽车通勤引入都市生活，并使用一种叫做“能源美元”的新型货币来结算，将有额外的好处（在福特和爱迪生看来），即削弱社会主义的发展。

整个大胆的计划几乎就快要成功了，南方人团结起来，支持这个所谓的“福特计划”。但是，虽然有些人认为这是一种走向未来、改造南方的做法，也有人认为这是有史以来**的土地诈骗之一。这两种说法都有其正确之处。

《电城》是展现那个时代和社会历史背景的丰富编年史，它提供了一个崭新角度，让我们重新审视眼看就能实现这项工程的发明家的个人生活、反对他们的力量，以及取代这一项目而崛起的新计划：一种新的被称为田纳西河谷管理局的公共公司，它是新政的**成就之一。这是一部面向广大读者的历史读物，它会吸引那些对美国历史、科技、政治和未来感兴趣的读者。