Marko Perko - Tesla: His Tremendous and Troubled Life

Marko Perko is a graduate of the University of Southern California. He has always had an insatiable thirst for knowledge of all types, and as such, he is highly regarded as a modern-day Renaissance man, author, historian, polymath, and polemicist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed and wildly popular book Did You Know That... ? He is also a novelist and the writer of an international bestselling knowledge-based board game, as well as the creator of the Cultural Enrichment Programs education series, and a software developer.

The subject of Nikola Tesla has been a lifelong passion for Marko Perko. As a fellow Serb, Perko has lived in the then-Yugoslavia and spent decades studying Teslas life. Over the years, he has lectured about Tesla as well as conducted personal interviews with some of Teslas relatives, friends, and others who knew the man.

Perko has written for and edited numerous publications, and he has worked as a columnist, speechwriter, composer, musician, lecturer, and playwright. He is a member of the Authors Guild, the Biographers International Organization, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, Broadcast Music, Inc., the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the British Library, and the Organization of American Historians.

Presently, he is authoring new books as well as working on television, film, and internet projects based upon several of his intellectual properties. He lives in California with his wife, Heather, and their daughter, Skye Mackay Perko. Their son, Marko Perko III, lives in London, England.

www.MarkoPerko.com

www.TeslaBiography.com

Stephen M. Stahl, MD, PhD, DSc, has held faculty positions at Stanford University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the Institute of Psychiatry London, and the Institute of Neurology London. Currently he is a professor at the University of California at San Diego and an Honorary Fellow in Psychiatry at the prestigious University of Cambridge. Dr. Stahl serves as editor in chief of CNS Spectrums. Author of over five hundred articles and chapters, and more than sixteen hundred scientific presentations and abstracts, Dr. Stahl is an internationally recognized clinician, researcher, and teacher in psychiatry with subspecialty expertise in psychopharmacology. Dr. Stahl has written thirty-nine textbooks and edited thirteen others, including the bestselling and award-winning textbook, Stahls Essential Psychopharmacology, now in its fourth edition, and the bestselling and award-winning clinical manual, Essential Psychopharmacology Prescribers Guide, now in its fifth edition. Dr. Stahl has also published a novel, Shell Shock, a thriller that recounts the history of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder). Dr. Stahl is senior academic advisor and director of psychopharmacology for the California Department of State Hospitals (DSH), where he has a leadership role in addressing violence in the five-hospital, 6,500-patient DSH. He has been awarded the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CINP) Lundbeck Foundation Award in Education for his contributions to postgraduate education in psychiatry and neurology. His books have won the British Medical Associations Book of the Year Award and, recently, first prize for best digital medical book. Dr. Stahl is also the winner of the A. E. Bennett Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, the APA/San Diego Psychiatric Society Education Award, and the UCSD Psychiatry Residency Teaching Award, and he has been cited as both one of Americas Top Psychiatrists and one of the Best Doctors in America. He was honored with the Distinguished Psychiatrist Award of the APA and gave the Distinguished Psychiatrist Lecture for 2013. He was named the 2016 David Mrazek Award Winner of the American Psychiatric Association and gave the Mrazek Pharmacogenomics Memorial Lecture at the 2016 APA meeting. His alma mater, Northwestern University, honored him by naming the award for the most promising medical student to go into psychiatry the Stephen Stahl Award. In 2018, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science by Uskudar University in Istanbul, Turkey, for his lifetime of achievements in psychiatry.

When not traveling the globe as a highly in-demand medical lecturer, Dr. Stahl lives in Southern California and spends his creative time penning the Gus Conrad thriller series.

www.neiglobal.com

www.TeslaBiography.com

A special acknowledgment to my parents, Darinka and Mike Perko, who always allowed me to find my own way and forever encouraged my curiosity.

To Charles D. Holland, Esquire, for your wise counsel.

To Franklin M. Chu, MD; Hrayr Karnig Shahinian, MD; Natalija Nogulich; Liz Chu, NP; Jessica E. Reynolds; Shelly J. Preston; James E. Cheeley, DC; and Darrell E. Parks for your endless support. You are all deserving of my deepest respect.

To William Terbo, Nikola Teslas grandnephew, who many years ago accommodated my questions about the great man during a pleasant Sunday afternoon we spent together. It was most illuminating.

And to those who knowingly and unknowingly inspired me to write this book, I humbly thank you.MP

To Professor Hagop Akiskal, my former colleague at the University of California, San Diego, for many useful discussions about the expression of bipolar disorder in creative geniuses, and for his help in interpreting the evidence in the record of Nikola Tesla that documents the ups and downs of Teslas mood over his long lifetime.

To the numerous other psychiatrists, mental health professionals, and experts in bipolar disorder who have written on the topic and opened my eyes to the age-old question of the relationship of bipolar disorder and creativity.

To the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia, for facilitating my visit there, and for providing me insights into the man Nikola Tesla and his genius. SMS

We, the authors, have many people to thank, without whom this book would not have been possible. These talented people, from beginning to end, were part of the journey from concept to the first book sale and beyond. The list begins with our literary agent extraordinaire, Mark Gottlieb, of the Trident Media Group. From a late-night exchange of emails a few years ago to this very moment, he has been the one individual whose conviction that Teslas unique story was worth telling our way has never wavered. To our exceptional (executive) editor, Jonathan Kurtz, of Prometheus Books, for his belief in the project, and his generosity in giving us the freedom to write Tesla: His Tremendous and Troubled Life. To Jessica McCleary, Gary Hamel, and the entirety of the production staff at Prometheus Books for their assiduous work and support in making the vision of our book become reality. And to Tara C. Craig for granting our requests at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

And lastly, writing as a two-author team would have been virtually impossible without Nikola Teslas invention of wireless communication. MP & SMS

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