The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness

Katie Booth in conversation with Jaipreet Virdi

Alexander Graham Bell is known as the inventor of the telephone, but as the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach the deaf to speak. And yet by the end of his life, despite his best efforts—or perhaps because of them—Bell had become the American Deaf community’s most powerful enemy. Katie Booth recounts the complicated tragedy of a brilliant young man who set about stamping out what he saw as a dangerous language: Sign. The book offers a heartbreaking look at how heroes can become villains and how good intentions are, unfortunately, nowhere near enough—as well as a powerful account of the dawn of a civil rights movement and the triumphant tale of how the Deaf community reclaimed their once-forbidden language.