Hidden Systems: Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind the Systems We Use Every Day

Throughout the book, the author shows readers how these hidden systems benefit some people and communities but not all. In the 1960s, mines and power plants built on Navajo land carried energy to cities across the country. But today, many homes in the Navajo Nation still aren't on the electric grid. Urban U.S. power plants were often built in disadvantaged neighborhoods that lacked the political power to fight against them. The book also highlights some of the innovations created by Native Peoples in the U.S. The Hohokam people who lived along the Salt and Gila Rivers in the American Southwest dug thousands of miles of irrigation canals through the desert. The canals were "redug" in the 1860s and are used today to bring water to Phoenix, Arizona. The Author's Notes tells readers that the book was created in Ndakinna ("our land"), the traditional unceded homeland in the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire of the Western Abenaki people.

Thomas Edison ran a "smear campaign" against his competitor Nikola Tesla. He killed animals using Tesla's AC (alternating current), hoping people would decide it was too dangerous for them to use. Edison also helped invent the first electric chair.