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Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World
August 2001, McGraw Hill Publishers
This book is about the scientific roots of our modern way of life. It tells the story of nine pioneering chemists whose discoveries
solved critical problems in their lifetimes. Their discoveries--white clothes, cheap soap and sugar, brightly colored washable fabric,
clean water, fertilizer, powerful aviation and automotive fuel, safe refrigerants, synthetic textiles, pesticides, and lead-free fuel
and food--were enthusiastically embraced by the buying public. Few of us today would want to do without them. In time, however, some
of these scientific discoveries--even those that in their day made major reforms--produced their own set of difficulties. In each case
where this occurred, the burden of identifying and solving the problem fell to science.
Reviews
"Absorbing."
- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
"A compelling read... many fascinating stories... an ambitious book, and well-researched."
- Nature
"This book is a gem! Rarely have I seen chemistry so clearly and eloquently explained, while still showing all its
shortcomings.... A good and easy read."
- AAAS Science Books and Films.
"Appealing... humbling... moving. It's good to get a bit of perspective and this book provides just that."
- New Scientist.
"Thoughtful and thought-provoking. An excellent job of describing the chemical processes and their legacies -- both
beneficial and unintended."
- C&EN
"Artfully combines scientific, economic, political, and sociological implications of the discoveries by focusing on the
inventors and their lives."
-NSTA Recommends.
"On your next trip to the bookstore bypass the action adventure thrillers and seek out
Prometheans in the Lab... I wish that McGrayne's book were twice its length."
- PopularMechanics.com
"Evenhanded... [describes] both the benefits that chemists have conferred on the world and the social and environmental
problems that they have inadvertently caused.... this is indeed unsuual, if not unique... Her portraits of warts-and-all personalities and
private lives are engaging.... both important and complicated. Well done and worth reading -- certainly for students, but even for academic
historians."
- Isis
"Masterly... exciting and absorbing. McGrayne critically examines the tangled and complicated interrelationships between
the public's insistence on progress and comfort and the need to preserve the eenvironment. The central thesis of McGrayne's book [is] that
science in general and chemistry in particular can solve any problems that it has unintentionally created. ... Meticulously documented.
- The Chemical Educator.
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Table of Contents for
Promethens in the Lab
Prelude: Bleach and Berthollet
1. Soap and Nicolas Leblanc
2. Dyes and William Henry Perkin
3. Sugar and Norbert Rillieux
4. Clean Water and Edward Frankland
5. Fertilizer, Poison Gas, and Fritz Haber
6. Leaded Gasoline, Safe Refrigeration, and Thomas Midgley Jr.
7. Nylon and Wallace Hume Carothers
8. DDT and Paul Hermann Mueller
9. Lead-Free Gasoline and Clair C. Patterson
Epilogue
Annotated Bibliography
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