Power For the People

About The Book And Author

POWER FOR THE PEOPLE tells the story of electricity in Sydney and Australia, and how it has influenced the development of our cities, and shaped our lives.

The book begins in 1770 with the arrival of electricity aboard Captain Cook's Endeavour. It traces the trials and tribulations of a new and pervasive technology which transformed our nation.

The author describes the selling of "the all-electric home" to the thousands of housewives who attended cookery demonstrations compered by "Radio Uncles" in the 1920s. It also shows how electricity liberated women from the back-breaking drudgery of housework, freeing them to have a life outside the home. And it paved the way for the sprawling suburbs of our modern cities.

The book also introduces the reader to the shady underworld of the "boodler" and the "joke", revealing the seemingly-endemic stain of corruption that has haunted the power industry to this day, confirming Lord Acton's famous dictum that "Power tends to Corrupt".

During the course of her 20 years of research, SANDRA DARROCH has also monitored the sweeping developments that have revolutionised Australia's multi-billion-dollar electricity industry in recent times.

POWER FOR THE PEOPLE brings the story of electricity up to the present-day controversies over privatisation of the "poles-and-wires" - and then takes a glimpse at what the future may hold at the cutting-edge of the energy sector in Australia.

SANDRA JOBSON DARROCH is the author of seven books, including Ottoline: the Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell (Chatto & Windus and Cassell) and Blokes (Pan Books). She was the first woman to work on general news at The Sydney Morning Herald and later pursued her journalistic and writing careers in London and New York, before returning to live in Australia