What do you think?
Rate this book
Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War
The untold story of film as a chemical cousin to poison gas and nuclear weapons, shaped by centuries of violent extraction
The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another tale to tell that connects film as a material to the twentieth century’s history of war, destruction, and cruelty.
This story comes into focus during World War II at the factories of Tennessee Eastman, where photographic giant Kodak produced the rudiments of movie magic. Not far away, at Oak Ridge, Kodak was also enriching uranium for the Manhattan Project—uranium mined in the Belgian Congo and destined for the bomb that fell on Hiroshima. While the world’s largest film manufacturer transformed into a formidable military contractor, across the ocean its competitor Agfa grew entangled with Nazi Germany’s machinery of war. After 1945, Kodak’s film factories stood at the front lines of a new, colder war, as their photosensitive products became harbingers of the dangers of nuclear fallout.
Following scientists, soldiers, prisoners, and spies through Kodak’s and Agfa’s global empires, Alice Lovejoy links the golden age of cinema and photography to colonialism, the military-industrial complex, radioactive dust, and toxic waste. Revelatory and chilling,Tales of Militant Chemistry shows how film became a weapon whose chemistry irrevocably shaped the world we live in today.
The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous directors, and the glitz and hustle of the media business. But there is another tale to tell that connects film as a material to the twentieth century’s history of war, destruction, and cruelty.
This story comes into focus during World War II at the factories of Tennessee Eastman, where photographic giant Kodak produced the rudiments of movie magic. Not far away, at Oak Ridge, Kodak was also enriching uranium for the Manhattan Project—uranium mined in the Belgian Congo and destined for the bomb that fell on Hiroshima. While the world’s largest film manufacturer transformed into a formidable military contractor, across the ocean its competitor Agfa grew entangled with Nazi Germany’s machinery of war. After 1945, Kodak’s film factories stood at the front lines of a new, colder war, as their photosensitive products became harbingers of the dangers of nuclear fallout.
Following scientists, soldiers, prisoners, and spies through Kodak’s and Agfa’s global empires, Alice Lovejoy links the golden age of cinema and photography to colonialism, the military-industrial complex, radioactive dust, and toxic waste. Revelatory and chilling,Tales of Militant Chemistry shows how film became a weapon whose chemistry irrevocably shaped the world we live in today.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published August 26, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Read
February 8, 2026A book about the relationship between film and war, but not in the way you'd think. You are already aware that since the invention of film, it's been mobilized to document and propagandize during times of war. But this is different. This is a book about the manufacture of film as a material product. It's about the chemical engineering techniques and industrial processes and scientific innovation involved in film, and how these processes sure look a lot like the manufacture of explosives. In this book, film is less like radio or television, and more like a chemical weapon.
It follows Eastman Kodak ("Kodak" is a made-up name; George Eastman is the founder), which has been a leader in film production since its founding in 1892. Film production is a mass chemical manufacturing process, much like plastics, pesticides, painkillers, and poisonous gasses. Here's a 20 minute silent movie industrial documentary from the 1920s that shows just how sophisticated Kodak's manufacturing processes were: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTLpx....
The most important thing to happen to chemical engineering companies in the 20th century was the Manhattan Project, the concerted effort by all of the nation's industrial capacity to build an atomic bomb. When we think about the Manhattan Project, it's easy to focus on the scientists at Los Alamos doing highly theoretical work. This is what the film Oppenheimer is about, and makes up the bulk of books like The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
But the real crux of the Manhattan Project was the recruitment by the US Army Corps of Engineers of the nation's top manufacturing companies (Union Carbide, Standard Oil, DuPont, General Electric, Monsanto, Raytheon) to the atomic bomb construction effort. The full industrial resources of the nation were deployed in concert to make the war effort possible, often without employees having any idea what it was they were actually working on. Eastman Tennessee—a company responsible for making film for movies—was at the centre of it all.
It follows Eastman Kodak ("Kodak" is a made-up name; George Eastman is the founder), which has been a leader in film production since its founding in 1892. Film production is a mass chemical manufacturing process, much like plastics, pesticides, painkillers, and poisonous gasses. Here's a 20 minute silent movie industrial documentary from the 1920s that shows just how sophisticated Kodak's manufacturing processes were: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTLpx....
The most important thing to happen to chemical engineering companies in the 20th century was the Manhattan Project, the concerted effort by all of the nation's industrial capacity to build an atomic bomb. When we think about the Manhattan Project, it's easy to focus on the scientists at Los Alamos doing highly theoretical work. This is what the film Oppenheimer is about, and makes up the bulk of books like The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
But the real crux of the Manhattan Project was the recruitment by the US Army Corps of Engineers of the nation's top manufacturing companies (Union Carbide, Standard Oil, DuPont, General Electric, Monsanto, Raytheon) to the atomic bomb construction effort. The full industrial resources of the nation were deployed in concert to make the war effort possible, often without employees having any idea what it was they were actually working on. Eastman Tennessee—a company responsible for making film for movies—was at the centre of it all.
September 16, 2025
felt a touch misled by the subtitle of this book - it refers to 'the film factory'. While technically accurate, I think most people think of 'the film factory' as a term for Hollywood, where in fact what's meant here are the two photochemical giants of the era, Kodak and AGFA. Admittedly, Hollywood gets plenty of mentions, but the movie studios' use of materials from these companies is totally dwarfed by their wider use.
At the heart of the book is the chemistry necessary to make film - first based on the highly flammable cellulose nitrate and then so-called safety film (apparently no more flammable than cardboard) cellulose acetate. Parts of the companies responsible for producing these products were pressed into wartime service to make darker products, in the First World War contributing to poison gas production and in the Second World War, in the case of Kodak, centrifuging to enrich uranium. The presentation always feels as if this was not just darker, but verging on evil, even though many would argue that in wartime it's perfectly normal for companies to be required to support the war effort.
I didn't particularly enjoy this book, not because of the subject per se, but rather a warning I was issued many years ago by a literary agent: always ask, is this a book or is it a magazine article. For me, this would have made an excellent long magazine article, but to turn it into a book, Alice Lovejoy has had to put in far more information than is necessary to tell the story. This level of detail is fine if you want to use the book as an academic reference, and to be fair it is published by a university press. But I was sold the book as popular science, and it really isn't.
There's plenty of interest here, both about the development of film technology and the chemistry behind it, and on the ways Kodak and AGFA contributed to wars - but it wasn't an engaging read.
At the heart of the book is the chemistry necessary to make film - first based on the highly flammable cellulose nitrate and then so-called safety film (apparently no more flammable than cardboard) cellulose acetate. Parts of the companies responsible for producing these products were pressed into wartime service to make darker products, in the First World War contributing to poison gas production and in the Second World War, in the case of Kodak, centrifuging to enrich uranium. The presentation always feels as if this was not just darker, but verging on evil, even though many would argue that in wartime it's perfectly normal for companies to be required to support the war effort.
I didn't particularly enjoy this book, not because of the subject per se, but rather a warning I was issued many years ago by a literary agent: always ask, is this a book or is it a magazine article. For me, this would have made an excellent long magazine article, but to turn it into a book, Alice Lovejoy has had to put in far more information than is necessary to tell the story. This level of detail is fine if you want to use the book as an academic reference, and to be fair it is published by a university press. But I was sold the book as popular science, and it really isn't.
There's plenty of interest here, both about the development of film technology and the chemistry behind it, and on the ways Kodak and AGFA contributed to wars - but it wasn't an engaging read.
January 13, 2026
This book kept wanting me to be gobsmacked that the film industry (most specifically Kodak and its major foreign competitors) had ties to the military-industrial complex in general and nuclear weapons in particular. I hope this is wisdom not cynicism – open to feedback – but I not only didn’t find this surprising, I thought it was a positive thing in two distinct ways.
First, WWII was a total war (against fascism, I feel compelled to remind everyone nowadays), so of course major industry should have been mobilized for it. Second, if you’re a manufacturing company with a waste stream, it’s a good thing for you to find clever ways to turn that waste stream into a valuable product! That’s good for your business, but MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY it’s great for the environment in multiple ways: less waste, more efficiencies, and fewer other separate industrial processes to make whatever that product is from virgin raw materials.
Maybe I just have a rare perspective on this because I’m a chemical engineer: this is often literally my job, and it's the typical job of everyone else who went to school for chemical engineering. In the epilogue, the author mentioned modern film companies (basically the suppliers of the few fussy famous and powerful directors who insist on using film not digital) trying to be part of the circular economy, and I thought “um, yeah, that’s what Kodak was doing, but you made it seem negative for the first 95% of this book.”
Interesting book, interesting stories of film history, and interesting history of this niche industry during and after the world wars. But a deeply strange read, and a misguided or even straight-up incorrect framing, to the degree that I was asking myself “what is this book even for?” That sounds too harsh because I enjoyed it, but I stand by the critique.
First, WWII was a total war (against fascism, I feel compelled to remind everyone nowadays), so of course major industry should have been mobilized for it. Second, if you’re a manufacturing company with a waste stream, it’s a good thing for you to find clever ways to turn that waste stream into a valuable product! That’s good for your business, but MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY it’s great for the environment in multiple ways: less waste, more efficiencies, and fewer other separate industrial processes to make whatever that product is from virgin raw materials.
Maybe I just have a rare perspective on this because I’m a chemical engineer: this is often literally my job, and it's the typical job of everyone else who went to school for chemical engineering. In the epilogue, the author mentioned modern film companies (basically the suppliers of the few fussy famous and powerful directors who insist on using film not digital) trying to be part of the circular economy, and I thought “um, yeah, that’s what Kodak was doing, but you made it seem negative for the first 95% of this book.”
Interesting book, interesting stories of film history, and interesting history of this niche industry during and after the world wars. But a deeply strange read, and a misguided or even straight-up incorrect framing, to the degree that I was asking myself “what is this book even for?” That sounds too harsh because I enjoyed it, but I stand by the critique.
December 16, 2025
This book feels like it tries to be many things all at once, without doing any of them well. Is this a history about Kodak or Eastman? Is this a local history of the Tennessee Eastman plant and surrounding area in Kingsport, Tennessee? Is this a history of the American and European chemical and film industries? Is this a commentary on the Manhattan Project and nuclear testing?
I think there's just too much winding and curving in the details here. It's tough to figure out what I'm supposed to take away or learn, as you are introduced to so many different concepts, people, and places, and are constantly whipsawed back and forth.
If there was a central, unifying track that some chapters or smaller stories branched off of, that would help and I could at least see the vision. But here, it just feels like a jumbled mess. Which is a shame, because I feel like there's a real, interesting, story to tell. I would have loved to know more about Kingsport, Tennessee, or Kodak, or the development of film and photography.
I think there's just too much winding and curving in the details here. It's tough to figure out what I'm supposed to take away or learn, as you are introduced to so many different concepts, people, and places, and are constantly whipsawed back and forth.
If there was a central, unifying track that some chapters or smaller stories branched off of, that would help and I could at least see the vision. But here, it just feels like a jumbled mess. Which is a shame, because I feel like there's a real, interesting, story to tell. I would have loved to know more about Kingsport, Tennessee, or Kodak, or the development of film and photography.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews