Describes how a circus elephant named Topsy was electrocuted in 1903 with 6,600 volts of alternating current as proof that it was much more dangerous than direct current in an ongoing dispute between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse.

Early in the twentieth century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey, slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time an Indian elephant was deliberately and publicly put to death by electricity in Coney Island. These are matters of historical fact. Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and wrongs crying out to be righted. Brace yourself for a wrenching journey that...

"Eli Faber, professor of history emeritus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has written a narrative history of the case of George Stinney, a fourteen-year-old African American boy who was executed for the alleged murder of two white girls (ages 8 and 11) in June 1944. This made Stinney the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century. In 2014, a circuit court judge in South Carolina vacated the conviction. Faber moves beyond...