A really interesting and somewhat hard to classify book. The murder is really more of an appetizer than an entree. The more interesting story winds up being how a railroad tycoons love of horses led to my love of the summer blockbuster, jaws. I probably shouldn't have picked up a book entitled a history of the development of moving pictures , so I understand why the murder was included. It's a good read ( )

More or less the story of the strange relationship between railroad magnate Leland Stanford and solitary photographer Eadweard Muybridge. I thought I'd like it - the time period and subject matter are right up my alley - but honestly, this book is kind of a mess. Not only is it not told in chronological order, it seems to be more or less on the author's whims, to the point where a lot of things need to be explained two or three times because they were last mentioned several chapters prior to the point at which they became relevant to the narrative. I started thinking maybe the book was written as the author was researching, with the facts presented in the order he found them. He also overuses the word "impresario". Not recommended. ( )

The strange and innumerable circumstances that bring two disparate people into each others' lives at just the right time are miraculous; and yet we can find evidence of these types of meetings throughout history. This story brings together two such men during a time of technological explosion and great scientific discovery. Each man's story was interesting on its own and is worthy of being told to future generations. However, in the short time where they came together, magic happened. When novel ideas and ingenuity meet adequate funding... the world is changed. In the case of Stanford and Mybridge, it was changed irrevocably and set the human race on its path to the future we currently inhabit. ( )

This book was interesting, but so disorganized. I learned a lot - about Leland Stanford, early photography, and the birth of motion pictures - but it was difficult to follow this disjointed story. I truly wish the author had simply told the tale chronologically, instead of jumping around with the murder trial as his focal point.

An interesting look at the not so reputable man who invented moving pictures and Leland Stanford who encouraged him to do so. The back story was tedious, but the actual invention portion was good. ( )

An interesting look at the not so reputable man who invented moving pictures and Leland Stanford who encouraged him to do so. The back story was tedious, but the actual invention portion was good. ( )

Excellent narrator (audio book). I liked the book but it simply wasn't that good. The time period jumped around so much that sometimes I wasn't sure if the author was telling the histories backwards (much like the move "Memento"). There was some connection between the two men Muggeridge and Stanford but it sure seemed like the author wanted there to be a bigger connection than there actually was, and the author often posited what may or may not have been going on in subject's minds. I found it hard to focus on as an audiobook, occasionally thinking that my audio had jumped to the wrong part; but no, it was just once again the author flipping back and forth through time periods. Honestly, about 1/2 the book was focused and interesting and connected... the rest was drivel and repetitious discussion of what "whoever" might have been thinking. Still, I recommend, if you've read everything else you want, and are searching for a historical period book. ( )

We are entertained by an endless stream of images based on the invention of stop-motion photography. Cameras record a series of scenes – many per second – which are replayed back to us on movie screens, televisions, and computer monitors, thus preserving moments in time even long after the subjects are dead. I once read that the inventor of the motion picture camera was the famous Thomas Edison, but it turns out he appropriated the invention from another.

Edward Muggeridge was an Englishman with an artistic eye and a penchant for inventions who emigrated to the United States, eventually settling in San Francisco and becoming a landscape photographer. This was in the frontier decades of California where a person could reinvent himself, and Muggeridge went through a series of names including "Helios" before eventually calling himself Eadweard Muybridge. Along the way he made friends with the most powerful and influential people in the city and even killed a man.

Leland Stanford, one-time governor of California and wealthy railroad tycoon, was one of those friends. Stanford had an obsession with horses and the question of the day was whether or not all hooves left the ground during a gallop. With Stanford backing him financially, Muybridge invented a process to photograph a horse (and later other animals and lots of naked people) and replay the photos to settle the question once and for all. (Stanford also provided a lawyer when Muybridge killed his wife's adulterous lover in the little Sonoma town of Calistoga.)

Edward Ball tells the story of the two men in his book The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures, and it's a fascinating tale. Ball reaches back to their early lives and traces their paths as they cross and separate, and it appears that he's done a considerable amount of research (including *why* Muybridge might have changed his name at different times). In spite of that he also engages in a fair amount of speculation, and the words "if" and "might" pop up frequently. He is oftentimes harsh in his assessments, particularly of Stanford, but that's not much of a complaint since I tend to agree with him. Numerous pictures illustrate the history well, and it's a very readable story. I think anyone interested in the history of motion pictures or California will find this an interesting read. (I received an advance copy from the publisher.) ( )

We are promised "a gilded age murder and the birth of moving pictures" by the cover. The murderer and the person responsible for the moving pictures is Eadweard Muybridge, a somewhat kooky and interesting character who reinvented himself several times. So you may be wondering who the tycoon of the title is - he's Leland Stanford, railroad baron. The intersection of their lives comes when Stanford's interest in horses overlaps Muybridge's interest in capturing motion. Stanford asks Muybridge to take photos of a horse to see if all four feet come off the ground at a gallop (spoiler: they do). Muybridge continues from there to perfect his techniques for freezing motion in photographs and then playing them back in sequence to create movement on a screen.

I don't know what the author was trying to do with this book. Muybridge is interesting and weird enough to probably have the book just about him. The murder is honestly not all that interesting, and wasn't a big deal for Muybridge's future or anyone else's opinion of him, no matter how much Ball tried to tease it as something nefarious. Leland Stanford was a tangential player in Muybridge's life, and had almost nothing to do with the story about moving pictures. His horse was the impetus for some of Muybridge's work, but it seems like Muybridge was heading that direction anyway, so it's not like Stanford made it happen. The writing is kind of annoying, jumping between the main players' lives and back and forth in time for no good reason. Perhaps as a result of this, Ball repeats himself or reminds the reader too many times who someone is. ("Mark Hopkins, one of Stanford's partners in the Central Pacific Railroad..." if you can't remember that in Part 3 of the book, after he's been mentioned many times, you're probably not retaining much at all.) Another complaint is that Ball seems to enjoy taking flights of fancy regarding what someone might have done, seen, or thought. I'm fine with speculation to fill in the blank areas, but when it starts off with where someone "might have gone," followed by what they "might have seen" there, and what they "might have thought" about it all, I'm kind of wondering why you're not just writing historical fiction instead.

So, the writing is sub-par, there's far too much speculation, and it probably would have been a stronger book just focusing on Muybridge. The positives really have more to do with the actual tale than the book of it. I listened to the audio version, and I often looked up images that were mentioned (Muybridge's panoramas of San Francisco are awesome!). If there's not another book out there on the topic, read The Inventor and the Tycoon, but I'd at least investigate the options before choosing this one. ( )

This joint biography of Leland Stanford, the California railroad tycoon and Eadweard Muybridge, the early photographer, pulled together two stories that did join at an important point (the early photographs that show a horse with all of its feet off of the ground as it runs-created by Muybridge and financed by Stanford), but they largely lived lives independent of each other. Each was an important and interesting player in his field and I enjoyed the information. I did find the telling of their stories too disjointed, jumping too frequently from their adulthood to their childhood and back again. ( )

The Inventor and the Tycoon is readable, but I think that's more in spite of Edward Ball's writing than because of it. The subject matter is great: Eadweard Muybridge, an Anglo-American who was as notorious for the murder he committed as for his pioneering photographs and Leland Stanford, the railroad tycoon and founder of Stanford University. Both men played key roles in the history of 19th century California, and both were utter bastards to boot. Great fodder for a book, right?

Sadly, The Inventor and the Tycoon could profitably be used in the college classroom as an example of how not to write history. Ball's narrative jumps backwards and forwards in time for no good reason; I think he was attempting to add drama, but all of his attempts fall flat. The same information is often given three or four times, the thematic links which Ball could have emphasised are often ignored, and Ball has a terrible penchant for speculating about what someone "might have thought" and for reading people's character through portrait photography. Yes, someone might well seem distant and reserved in a mid-19th century formal portrait, when the subject had to hold themselves still for a minute or more in order not to spoil the shot—that doesn't give us some deep insight into their personality! Someone needed to go through this manuscript with a red pen, excise a hundred pages and rearrange the rest in order for this to work. ( )

This work is about the Gilded Age and the birth of moving pictures. It describes an unlikely pair, the inventor of movies, and wealthy investor Leland Stanford. One was a killer; one was a dilettante. The work is well researched but equally well written and makes an intriguing read. Stanford was the reluctant public figure whereas our photographer was the itinerant publicity hound. The author makes an interesting case about Edison's reliance on the dilettante's idea for motion pictures. Their meetings even suggested the idea of synchronizing film and sound although the invention and combination of the two inventions were perfected long after both of the men met. The heart of the book remains the intriguing case of a blatant murderer who was acquitted and continued his erstwhile reinventions and career.

https://vimeo.com/88757568
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-inventor-and-the-tycoon-a-gilded-age...