Business history is littered with stories of missed opportunities, of geniuses that never cashed in on their brilliance, of great men who sold themselves short. Apple Computer with its user-friendly operating system, the McDonald brothers of San Bernardino with their fast-food restaurant are two prime examples. This book is about a similar tragedy, but of greater proportion, namely of the failure of a nation to take advantage of a homegrown technology, of a nation that saw its basic research usurped by a competitor. In short, it is the story of the United Kingdom in the latter part of the 19th century and electro-magnetic power. It is the story of a nation that failed to exploit a homegrown technology and consequently sputtered and failed while another (i.e. the United States) prospered. It is the story of the tragedy that was the fall of the British Empire.