J. Lewis Blackburn

In order to appreciate this book, one must understand the history behind power system protective relaying. As the previous reviewers have mentioned, the two classic bibles in protective relaying is the Westinghouse Protective Relaying book and the Westinghouse T & D book. Lewis Blackburn put the former book together while he worked at Westinghouse and he had a hand in the second book as well. My father attended the Westinghouse training courses in the 1950's and his instructor was Lew Blackburn. Over time, Mr. Blackburn became a family friend and I grew up listening to them talk about the electric power industry and learned about the subject at the feet of the master. Even though I went into motors instead of relaying, I still enjoyed reading this book.

After Mr. Blackburn retired from Westinghouse, he became a consultant and proceeded to put the material in this book together. It was a labor of love, for a lot of people have said that the practice of protective relying is like black magic because there are many correct ways to protect a system, they all have problems but it is up to the practitioner to determine the best solution for a given situation. Mr. Blackburn poured his years of experience and expertise into this book. He tried to do this in a systematic manner in order to reduce the amount of ambiguity usually associated with the black arts. I believe he has succeeded.

I would agree with the others that the second edition was a letdown from the first, but then again, most first editions are more informative because authors wrote "their" book with the first edition, the following editions are ususally to answer the critics and publishers.… (plus d'informations)