The chemical age : how chemists fought famine and disease, killed millions, and changed our relationship with the Earth

Book

The chemical age : how chemists fought famine and disease, killed millions, and changed our relationship with the Earth / Frank A. von Hippel.

Von Hippel, Frank A. (Frank Arthur), (author.).

Summary:

"It has been nearly 60 years since the publication of Silent Spring, in which Rachel Carson brought to light evidence of the devastating ecological effects of pesticides. This book, by Frank von Hippel, is a sweeping history of these chemicals and our complicated relationship with them. It shows how they've made the modern world possible, while at the same time threatening its essential fabric. "This book starts with a tragedy that led scientists on an urgent mission to prevent famine with chemicals," von Hippel writes in his manuscript's Prologue. "It ends with the realization that those chemicals were insidiously damaging human health and driving species toward extinction." Along the way, we learn how pesticides' destructive legacy led to the environmental movement and made possible a new era of ecological thinking"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780226697246
ISBN: 022669724X
Physical Description: xiii, 389 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Publisher: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, [2020]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Famine. Potato blight (1586-1883) -- Plague. Marsh fever (2700 BCE-1902) ; Black vomit (1793-1953) ; Jail fever (1489-1958) ; Black death (541-1922) -- War. Synthetic chemicals of war (423 BCE-1920) ; Zyklon (1917-1947) ; DDT (1939-1950) ; I. G. Farben (1916-1959) -- Ecology. Resistance (1945-1962) ; Silent Spring (1962-1964) ; Wonder and humility (1962-The Future).