Lightning Beneath the Sea: The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age

The thrilling story of the nineteenth century’s moonshot: An Atlantic–spanning telegraph cable that created the global village and changed the world.

In 1854, the American entrepreneur Cyrus Field set out to lay a 2,000–mile telegraph cable across the Atlantic. Nothing like it had ever been attempted, and Field knew nothing about electricity, telegraphy, ships, or oceans. But he believed that wiring the world for near–instantaneous communication would bring about peace on Earth. After enduring years of global scorn, catastrophic failures, staggering losses, and brushes with death, Field would finally lay his great cable in 1866 and usher in the global information age—still undergirded by hundreds of that original cable’s descendants—as we know it.

Lightning Beneath the Sea is an unforgettable tale of radical vision, unwavering determination, and triumph against overwhelming odds, as Field and a scientific dream team—including Samuel Morse, a young Lord Kelvin, and Michael Faraday—battled epic storms, freak accidents, industrial sabotage, and even the enmity of Abraham Lincoln. From acclaimed author James M. Tabor, Lightning Beneath the Sea is the gripping account of an epochal achievement.