The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth
This sweeping history reveals how the use of chemicals has saved lives, destroyed species, and radically changed our planet: “Remarkable . . . highly recommended.” —Choice

In The Chemical Age, ecologist Frank A. von Hippel explores humanity’s long and uneasy coexistence with pests, and how the battles to exterminate them have shaped our modern world. He also tells the captivating story of the scientists who waged war on famine and disease with chemistry.

Beginning with the potato blight tragedy of the 1840s, which led scientists on an urgent mission to prevent famine using pesticides, von Hippel traces the history of pesticide use to the 1960s, when Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revealed that those same chemicals were insidiously damaging our health and driving species toward extinction.

Telling the story in vivid detail, von Hippel showcases the thrills—and complex consequences—of scientific discovery. He describes the creation of chemicals used to kill pests—and people. And, finally, he shows how scientists turned those wartime chemicals on the landscape at a massive scale, prompting the vital environmental movement that continues today.
1133349773
The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth
This sweeping history reveals how the use of chemicals has saved lives, destroyed species, and radically changed our planet: “Remarkable . . . highly recommended.” —Choice

In The Chemical Age, ecologist Frank A. von Hippel explores humanity’s long and uneasy coexistence with pests, and how the battles to exterminate them have shaped our modern world. He also tells the captivating story of the scientists who waged war on famine and disease with chemistry.

Beginning with the potato blight tragedy of the 1840s, which led scientists on an urgent mission to prevent famine using pesticides, von Hippel traces the history of pesticide use to the 1960s, when Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revealed that those same chemicals were insidiously damaging our health and driving species toward extinction.

Telling the story in vivid detail, von Hippel showcases the thrills—and complex consequences—of scientific discovery. He describes the creation of chemicals used to kill pests—and people. And, finally, he shows how scientists turned those wartime chemicals on the landscape at a massive scale, prompting the vital environmental movement that continues today.
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The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth

The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth

by Frank A. von Hippel
The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth

The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth

by Frank A. von Hippel

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Overview

This sweeping history reveals how the use of chemicals has saved lives, destroyed species, and radically changed our planet: “Remarkable . . . highly recommended.” —Choice

In The Chemical Age, ecologist Frank A. von Hippel explores humanity’s long and uneasy coexistence with pests, and how the battles to exterminate them have shaped our modern world. He also tells the captivating story of the scientists who waged war on famine and disease with chemistry.

Beginning with the potato blight tragedy of the 1840s, which led scientists on an urgent mission to prevent famine using pesticides, von Hippel traces the history of pesticide use to the 1960s, when Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring revealed that those same chemicals were insidiously damaging our health and driving species toward extinction.

Telling the story in vivid detail, von Hippel showcases the thrills—and complex consequences—of scientific discovery. He describes the creation of chemicals used to kill pests—and people. And, finally, he shows how scientists turned those wartime chemicals on the landscape at a massive scale, prompting the vital environmental movement that continues today.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226697383
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 12/22/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 403
Sales rank: 74,729
File size: 5 MB

About the Author

Frank A. von Hippel is professor of ecotoxicology at Northern Arizona University. He has taught ecology field courses in over twenty countries and conducted research in the Americas, Africa, and Australia. He hosts the Science History Podcast.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Author’s Note
Part 1: Famine

Chapter 1. Potato Blight (1586–1883)

Part 2: Plague

Chapter 2. Marsh Fever (2700 BCE–1902)
Chapter 3. Black Vomit (1793–1953)
Chapter 4. Jail Fever (1489–1958)
Chapter 5. Black Death (541–1922)

Part 3: War

Chapter 6. Synthetic Chemicals of War (423 BCE–1920)
Chapter 7. Zyklon (1917–1947)
Chapter 8. DDT (1939–1950)
Chapter 9. I. G. Farben (1916–1959)

Part 4: Ecology

Chapter 10. Resistance (1945–1962)
Chapter 11. Silent Spring (1962–1964)
Chapter 12. Wonder and Humility (1962–The Future)

Epilogue
  Acknowledgments
Map of Place Names
Literature Cited
Index
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