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Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc
1 pages, Audio CD
Published October 7, 2025
About the author
Hugh Aldersey-Williams
22 books87 followersI was born in London in 1959, the same year C.P. Snow gave his infamous ‘two cultures’ lecture about the apparently eternal divide in Britain between the arts and sciences. Perhaps this is where it all begins. Forced to choose one or the other at school and university, I chose the latter, gaining an MA in natural sciences from Cambridge.
By graduation, I was aware of a latent interest in the arts, particularly in architecture and design, and was seeking ways to satisfy all these urges in something resembling a career. Journalism seemed the obvious answer, and after a string of increasingly disastrous editorial positions on technical magazines, I went freelance in 1986 and was able at last to write about what really interested me in newspapers and magazines in all these fields.
Having an American mother and an English father makes me, as it says on jars of honey, ‘the produce of more than one country’, and has left me with a curiosity about matters of national identity. Living in the United States gave me the opportunity to write my first book, using my semi-detachment from the culture to identify a renaissance in contemporary American design. Its success led to a larger-scale examination of design and national cultures as well as a number other design books and a five-year stint as design critic of the New Statesman.
Now, the science was losing out. Over-compensating perhaps, I wrote an entire book about a single molecule—albeit an exceptionally novel and beautiful one, called buckminsterfullerene. Here at last science and design began to merge. My projects since then have continued to explore science, design, architecture, national identity and other themes in books and exhibitions.
I am a member of the Society of Authors and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I live in Norfolk and London with my wife Moira, son Sam, and two Maine coon cats.
By graduation, I was aware of a latent interest in the arts, particularly in architecture and design, and was seeking ways to satisfy all these urges in something resembling a career. Journalism seemed the obvious answer, and after a string of increasingly disastrous editorial positions on technical magazines, I went freelance in 1986 and was able at last to write about what really interested me in newspapers and magazines in all these fields.
Having an American mother and an English father makes me, as it says on jars of honey, ‘the produce of more than one country’, and has left me with a curiosity about matters of national identity. Living in the United States gave me the opportunity to write my first book, using my semi-detachment from the culture to identify a renaissance in contemporary American design. Its success led to a larger-scale examination of design and national cultures as well as a number other design books and a five-year stint as design critic of the New Statesman.
Now, the science was losing out. Over-compensating perhaps, I wrote an entire book about a single molecule—albeit an exceptionally novel and beautiful one, called buckminsterfullerene. Here at last science and design began to merge. My projects since then have continued to explore science, design, architecture, national identity and other themes in books and exhibitions.
I am a member of the Society of Authors and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I live in Norfolk and London with my wife Moira, son Sam, and two Maine coon cats.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 15, 2026
I originally downloaded this title for free as a Kindle promo. Eventually bought the physical copy to attempt to not only better acquaint myself with the elements but to help bolster my enthusiasm for having to lead my daughter's junior-level high school chemistry lab/discussion group.
I spent the school year reading, on most weekdays, a handful of pages because I found myself falling asleep during that time of day (not a problem of the author, but of my lifestyle).
In the end, I believe the author did exactly what he set out to do, which is provided most succinctly on the final pages (p. 388 of the paperback edition):
"My aim in this book has been to show that the elements are all around us, but in the material sense that they are in the objects we treasure and under our kitchen sinks, but also around us more powerfully in a figurative sense, in our art and literature and language, in our history and geography, and that the character of these parallel lives arises ultimately from each element's universal and unvarying properties."
This was done, exactly. Good job.
I had hoped, though, for more of hospitality to the reader from the author. It turns out that his own chemistry background, although not technically expert-level, gave him the problem that arises with many well-read individuals, wherein they have become so unaware of how far they've come in their own learnedness that they forget to bring the rest of us up to speed on obscure references. I felt a bit like a bystander at a dinner party, listening to smart people revel their own smartness or like listening to a wine afficionado discuss wine, with lingo and levels of knowledge, history, and background to which I have not been privy and so I'm not exactly sure of the cultural (art, movies, history, etc) references (and I laugh along anyway just to make sure they don't see I'm so ignorant).
This is good, then, for those who might want to ADD to their knowledge-base of the cultural relevance of chemistry and prevalence of all the elements everywhere. For people like me, it was a little out of reach.
It took me almost the entire school year, but I finished it, by golly! It will remain on my shelf as a reference for our future class discussions, in case I want to bring in an obscure detail about one of the elements.
I spent the school year reading, on most weekdays, a handful of pages because I found myself falling asleep during that time of day (not a problem of the author, but of my lifestyle).
In the end, I believe the author did exactly what he set out to do, which is provided most succinctly on the final pages (p. 388 of the paperback edition):
"My aim in this book has been to show that the elements are all around us, but in the material sense that they are in the objects we treasure and under our kitchen sinks, but also around us more powerfully in a figurative sense, in our art and literature and language, in our history and geography, and that the character of these parallel lives arises ultimately from each element's universal and unvarying properties."
This was done, exactly. Good job.
I had hoped, though, for more of hospitality to the reader from the author. It turns out that his own chemistry background, although not technically expert-level, gave him the problem that arises with many well-read individuals, wherein they have become so unaware of how far they've come in their own learnedness that they forget to bring the rest of us up to speed on obscure references. I felt a bit like a bystander at a dinner party, listening to smart people revel their own smartness or like listening to a wine afficionado discuss wine, with lingo and levels of knowledge, history, and background to which I have not been privy and so I'm not exactly sure of the cultural (art, movies, history, etc) references (and I laugh along anyway just to make sure they don't see I'm so ignorant).
This is good, then, for those who might want to ADD to their knowledge-base of the cultural relevance of chemistry and prevalence of all the elements everywhere. For people like me, it was a little out of reach.
It took me almost the entire school year, but I finished it, by golly! It will remain on my shelf as a reference for our future class discussions, in case I want to bring in an obscure detail about one of the elements.
Displaying 1 of 1 review