de Vocht, Frank. Review of The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life by Arthur Firstenberg. Conservation & Society 17, no. 1 (2019): 118-19. https://doi.org/10.4103/cs.cs_18_92.
Does electricity have any detrimental effects on plants, humans and other animals, and if so, how much of a problem is this and why is it not a much bigger concern to us, are the main questions which Arthur Firstenberg aims to answer in his book The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life. To understand the raison d’etre for writing this book, it is important to realise that its writer, a researcher, journalist and consultant, as well as a practitioner of “several healing arts,” experiences the effects of self-diagnosed electro-hypersensitivity. As such, The Invisible Rainbow is not only a work of popular science aimed at providing a historical account of the introduction of electricity into society and describing, based on early warnings about side effects of electric shocks and scientific experiments on humans, other animals, and plants, how this may affect biological systems, it is also a campaigner’s warning about the consequences of the ubiquitous presence of electricity for human health and the environment. (Excerpt from book review)
© Frank de Vocht 2019. Conservation & Society is available online only and is published under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.5).