edison insurance company reviews

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The oil industry in the United States has been the subject of innumerable histories. But books on the development of the natural gas industry and the electricity industry in the U.S. are scarce. Edison to Enron is a readable flowing history of two of America's largest and most colorful industries.

It begins with the story of Samuel Insull, a poor boy from England, who started his career as Thomas Edison's right-hand man, then went on his own and became one of America's top industrialists. But when Insull's General Electric's energy empire collapsed during the Great Depression, the hitherto Great Man was denounced and prosecuted and died a pauper. Against that backdrop, the book introduces Ken Lay, a poor boy from Missouri who began his career as an aide to the head of Humble oil, now part of Exxon Mobil. Lay went on to become a Washington bureaucrat and energy regulator and then became the wunderkind of the natural gas industry in the 1980s with Enron.

To connect the lives of these two energy giants, Edison to Enron takes the reader through the flamboyant history of the American energy industry, from Texas wildcatters to the great pipeline builders to the Washington wheeler-dealers.

From the Reviews...

"This scholarly work fills in much missing history about two of America's most important industries, electricity and natural gas."
―Joseph A. Pratt, NEH-Cullen Professor of History and Business, University of Houston

"... a remarkable book on the political inner workings of the U.S. energy industry."
―Robert Peltier, PE, Editor-in-Chief, POWER Magazine

"This is a powerful story, brilliantly told."
―Forrest McDonald, Historian

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley-Scrivener; 1st edition (October 3, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 608 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0470917369
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0470917367
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches
Reviewer: James Strock
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent Rendering of Parallel Lives, Work
Review: Robert Bradley Jr. has written a very useful account of two of the great energy industry leadership collapses of the last century: Samuel Insull of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, and Ken Lay of Enron.The comparison is inspired. Bradley sums up Insull's contribution: "Thomas Edison invented the common use of electricity, but Samuel Insull, more than anyone else, distributed it to the masses....Insull ingeniously developed the business model to affordably bring electricity into homes, stores, offices, and industry. Thomas Edison was the father of electricity; his protoge Insull was the father of the modern electricity industry."Insull's career ended in disgrace if not tragedy. Ironically, Insull, who had mastered relations with government agencies to create his industry, was to be targeted for prosecution in the wake of his holding companies' collapse in the Great Depression. Insull became one of the prime scapegoats of the era.Ken Lay is recounted by the author as "Mr. Natural Gas" in the latter part of the 20th century. Bradley, who worked for Lay, appropriately acknowledges that Lay's historical place pales beside that of Insull. Unlike Insull, Lay was not an empire builder. Unlike Insull, Lay had foundational expertise not in energy per se, but in the interaction of government and industry through the regulatory process. He was a formally trained economist acting as an unacknowledged financier. Unlike Insull, Lay was not a learned individual; he strove to use knowledge and information in an opportunistic manner. Bradley convincingly argues that this was a defect with consequences, notably in Lay's self-regarding and self-destructive defense against his ultimate prosecution.Reflecting on Insull, seeing his career laid out in parallel to Lay's, has encouraged this reader to follow up with additional research. Forrest McDonald, a renowned historian who strongly endorsed 'From Edison to Enron,' has written a respected biography of Insull. Insull is also mentioned in many histories of the Great Depression, though, as Bradley points out with at least one prominent example, such renderings may be woefully incomplete.Bradley offers this volume as part of his case against what he calls "political capitalism." The term refers to, in Bradley's words, "a variant of the mixed economy in which business interests routinely seek, obtain, and use government intervention for their own advantage, at the expense of consumers, taxpayers, and/or competitors." It's clear that Insull and Lay abused the system in such a manner. It's also clear to this reader that much of the subsequent remedial legislation and regulation may have been distorted in reaction to the wrongdoing of Insull and Lay and their ilk.That said, it would be helpful to have more discussion from Bradley about what a proper regulatory regime would look like. The nature of energy--in its production, distribution and use--ensures that there will be a significant government role. How can that best be set up to protect the public, while encouraging innovation that is aligned with the public interest?Perhaps Mr. Bradley will present his vision in detail in his third volume. If this book is any indicator, his examination will be as thorough and well-presented as his conclusions will be compelling.

Reviewer: Unus, sed leo
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very enjoyable reading, although a little raw and rambling
Review: This book surprised me. From the title, I expected it to be a diatribe against the evils of Enron. It is not.Rather, the book traces the major figures in the energy industry starting with Thomas Edison (starting in 1878) and ending with the pre-Enron Kenneth Lay (ending in 1984). The book is, therefore, a history. As the middle volume of a trilogy, it leaves (most of) the discussion of economic policy to the first volume ("Capitalism at Work") and of the evils of Enron to the last volume ("Enron and Ken Lay: An American Tragedy").As history, the book reads well. The author, Robert Bradley, can tell a story. He gives interesting facts about the people he talks about, and seems to get the context right. For example, he spends a lot of time on Samuel Insull, an interesting character who built the electricity industry as an industry. Other authors mention that Insull died in a Paris subway station with only pennies in his pocket, implying that he died a friendless pauper. Here we learn, though, that no papers or identification were found on Insull's body. So he was no pauper, but had only pennies in his pocket because his wallet had been stolen. Although his riches had all evaporated, Insull still had an annual pension of $21,000, which was plenty to live on at the time.I've read a lot about energy, and a lot about many (though not all) of the people the book covers. Still I found lots to interest me. The book is not straight history. Policy gets discussed too. But agree with the author or not, the policy adds to the book, rather than dilute the history.The main fault I found was that the book was a little raw and rambling. Sometimes there was too much detail. Sometimes the strokes of the author's brush were too broad. There were even some technical problems with the text -- too large blank spaces between words, mistaken words, and errors. (As it is published by Wiley, that surprised me.)Overall, though, I enjoyed reading the book. Although I hesitate to predict what others will think, my hunch is most people will like the tone and approach too.