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

by Frank von Hippel

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

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Environment, Chemistry, Nature, Technology

403 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 22, 2022

Reviews

[Trey Shipp · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are no chemical formulas in this book – just good stories. Von Hippel, a conservation biologist from a distinguished scientific family, tells how scientists worked to fight famine and prevent disease but often saw their solutions used for war and environmental destruction.

Here are a few of the many interesting examples in the book:

• The Black Death epidemic (bubonic plague) that began in 541 killed 25 to 100 million people, started the Persian empire's collapse, contributed to the decline of the Roman empire, and put Europe into the dark ages.

• Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 with over half a million soldiers. Less than ten thousand made it back to France alive. Disease, especially typhus, killed far more troops than battles. A century later, during the Russian civil war of 1917-23, typhus killed over three million people.

• Three of Louis Pasteur's five children died from disease; two from typhoid fever. He then devoted his career to defeating infectious diseases.

• When Swiss chemist Paul Muller discovered how DDT could kill insects such as lice that spread typhus and mosquitoes that spread malaria, the US military in WWII tried to keep the discovery a war secret, thinking of the advantages if enemy soldiers suffered from the diseases that allied soldiers were protected from.

• In December 1944, the US Army used torpedo bombs to spray an entire Pacific Island with two quarts of DDT per acre. When the Army's assistant surgeon general visited Saipan Island after it had been sprayed with DDT, following an epidemic of dengue fever, he was "astonished by the complete absence of mosquitoes and flies."

• After the war, many communities regularly sprayed populated areas with DDT. And chemical companies added DDT to wallpaper to kill flies that came into the home. By the 1950s, the US made 180 million pounds of DDT per year, about one pound per person.

• When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, she was harshly attacked by chemical companies and several prominent scientists for misleading the public into thinking that the high use of pesticides caused problems. Later it was found that some US mothers had five times the level of DDT in their breast milk than what was allowed in cow's milk.

This book represents the best tradition in good science writing by showing what happened through stories about scientists and what was happening in their world at the time. The last chapter especially captures the human element, where he tells the story of his great-grandfather, James Franck, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who had to flee Nazi Germany.

[Amit Verma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books of science are generally more scientific than literary.
Popular science needs to be simple to resonate with masses and to deliver pain free message.
This book does both the things positively.
It describes in a highly readable prose how chemistry has shaped history of humankind.
It starts with potato blight and it's treatment by chemists.
Then it explores diseases that killed millions like malaria, plague and typhus fever.
It explores process of havoc created by these diseases and how their cause was identified.
Then there is account of how few chemicals radically reduced mortality of these diseases.
It is fascinating to see how scientists infected themselves to research and in few instances even died doing it.
It is mind boggling dedication towards scientific pursuits.
At end there is also introspection of harmful side effects of chemicals like war gases, DDT and other insecticides.
Contemporary media and political happenings around chemicals are also added.
A very good collection of anthology of human interaction with pests and chemicals for their eradication and use in warfare.
Recommended for science buffs.
Thanks netgalley and publisher for review copy.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very awesome book that although a bit lengthy provides an exceptional overview of chemicals in the modern era. From military uses, to civilian chemistry advances, to pesticides, and the environmental movement, the author seems to cover it all. Key excerpts are many, but the highlights are below.

- Regardless, the blight crisscrossed the Atlantic with the speed of the merchant fleet that carried potatoes from 1 hemisphere to the other. Speed may have been a critical element: steam powered ships have begun regular crossings of the Atlantic Ocean in 1838, just seven years before the Irish famine. P7 PJK: interesting assessment of how the potato blight in the mid-1800s came about so quickly, and so thoroughly. Seems like common sense once you think about it.
- Malaria was likely the 1st and most deadly infectious disease to sweep through ancient human settlements that formed with the advent of agriculture. Reliance on water sources put villages and cities adjacent to the breeding grounds of the anopheles mosquitoes that carry malaria. P31.
- The belief in poisonous air is the cause of malaria led to its name. Which is derived from the Italian mala aria, or “bad air”. P32. PJK: interesting way the term was created.
- Greater immunity of African slaves increased their value, and hence yellow fever further entrenched the institution of slavery. P53. PJK: good assessment. Sad, but makes sense.
- Washington's abandonment of Philadelphia created a constitutional crisis. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued that Washington could not call Congress into session outside of Philadelphia; this created a federal government shutdown at a time of chaos. Their reasoning was sound. English kings had used the political ploy of calling parliament into session in remote locations with no notice. P56. 1793. PJK: Wow. Since the country was so young it hadn’t worked all the kinks out. The federal government was shut down due to yellow fever; interesting.
- When it was deemed safe, Congress convened in Philadelphia and passed a law allowing the president to assemble Congress outside of Philadelphia in cases of emergency. Not only did the federal government collapse during the crisis, so also did the Pennsylvania State government and the Philadelphia city government…. P56. 1793
- The following year, in 1794, yellow fever revisited Philadelphia, and it did so again in 1796, 1797, and 1798. The prospect of governmental functions perpetually subject to the effects of the disease deprived the city of its previous allure as the seat of government. P57. PJK: explains the urgency to create Washington DC.
- Cochrane’s grandson declared that chemical weapons were “the most powerful means of averting all future war” since they “would frighten every nation from running the risk of warfare at all”. P136.
- Haber had solved the world's fertilizer problem and thereby initiated the green revolution. P142. I’ve read about the Green Revolution, but didn’t know how key fertilizer was to its success.
Without nitrogen fixation, perhaps 1/3 of the world's rapidly expanding population in the 20th century would have starved. P142.
- Germany’s generals had planned on quick victory. They had no plan for protracted defense against enemies on all sides that were growing in strength while Germany consumed its limited resources for war. Reluctantly, the generals concluded that they had to turn to scientists to stave off defeat. The German government assigned Nernst the task of devising effective chemical agents to use in weapons. P143. PJK: When desperate, you explore all options.
- On April 22, 1915 Haber supervised the release of 150 tons of chlorine gas from 5730 gas cylinders near Ypres in Belgium in the first use in history of a weapon of mass destruction. P144. PJK: And so it began…
- By war’s end, 1/4 of artillery shells contained chemicals; the chemical weapons plants were churning out their maximum production capability. P150. PJK: startling number.
- In 1914, American chemical companies produced only simple organic chemistry products and relied upon chemical reactants purchased from Germany. Germany’s chemical production was 21 times greater than that of the United States. The war would change all that… p150.
- A leading American proponent of chemical weapons wrote that gas was “at one and the same time the most powerful and the most humane method of warfare ever invented.” P157.
World War One necessitated the blurring of the lines between military and industrial activities. P160. PJK: and the lines are still blurred; and we need them. As described at times in the book, the government needs industry to solve a problem very quickly thus the relationship is 24/7/365.
- Chemical warfare metamorphosed into pest control, with the preservation of humanity, rather than its destruction, as the goal. At the same time, pest control research justified the continued existence of the chemical warfare service and its improvement of poison gases. P161.
- In the surf, beware of sharks, Barracuda, sea snakes, anemones, razor sharp coral, polluted waters, poison fish, and giant clams that shot on a man like a bear trap. Ashore, there is a leprosy, typhus, filariasis, yaws, typhoid, dengue fever…. Eat nothing growing on the island, don't drink it's waters.… p185. PJK: I can’t imagine giving this type of briefing pre-invasion. No soldier would want to go.
- Japan had been the primary supplier of pyrethrum to the United States before the war…. Therefore, Allied troops were nearly defenseless against the parade of insect transmitted diseases until 1943, when the military introduced a new weapon to the South Pacific, European, and North African theaters: DDT… p191.
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in a speech to the House of Commons on September 28th 1944 the bemoaned the 237,006 soldiers of the British imperial army fighting the Japanese in Burma… In December 1944 the army employed torpedo bombers, flying at 125 miles an hour and an altitude of 150 feet to spray 6400 acre Pacific island with DDT… p199. PJK: crazy environmental disaster.
- One complication was that, from a medical point of view, spraying DDT onto beach heads before landing troops for combat would have been prudent, but the enemy might misinterpret the pesticide application as chemical or biological warfare… A spiraling tip for tat conflict would have followed, as it had during World War One. Hence, DDT applications by allied forces typically occurred following troop invasions. P200. PJK: glad a staff officer was willing to bring this up as operations were being planned.
A French economist pointed out that the role of competition in the armaments industry is unique: “The trade in arms is the only one in which an order obtained by a competitor increases that of his rivals. The great armament firms of hostile powers oppose one another like pillars supporting the same arch. And the opposition of their governments makes their common prosperity.” P216.
Perhaps the greatest crime of IG Farben was its use of slave labor. The Nazis and their corporate allies utilized slaves from concentration camps throughout their sprawling network of production facilities for war materials and weapons. P220. Between 1941 and 1945, IG Farben enslaved 275,000 concentration camp inmates… p222. PJK: A stunning statistic of which I was not aware. Very sad.
Carson wrote, “The chemical weed killers are bright new toy. They work in a spectacular way; they give a giddy sense of power over nature to those who wield them…” p289. The use of chemical defoliants in war was a possibility that emerged from the discovery of plant hormones that regulate growth. P289.
- By the end of the war, the chemical warfare service had tested about 1000 chemicals and found 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T to be the most effective. The war ended, and being used for combat these herbicides were commercialized as weed killers. The chemical 2,4,5-T did see use in combat in the early 1950s in Malaya, British forces employed the other side to destroy crops and defoliate trees. Thus, the stage was set for the U.S. use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. P289-9. PJK: Never heard of the operation in Malaya… but interesting how it led to U.S. herbicide use in SE Asia. :(

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Chemical Age was an accessible, educational read about how chemistry has shaped our world. Specifically, it talks about the ways chemistry has been used by scientists to combat disease, pests and famine.
Part One discusses the potato blight of the 1840s, and how it provided some of the impetus toward using chemicals to improve living conditions.
Part Two looks at plagues, beginning with Marsh fever, which has affected humans for over 2000 years, and includes Jail Fever, and The Black Death.
Part Three takes a look at how chemicals have been used in war. One chapter is devoted to Zyklon, which was used to exterminate people, and another looks at the pesticide DDT, and how it was weaponised due to the harmful side effects it has on humans.
Part Four focuses on more ethical lines, such as activism and one example is Silent Spring.

Well researched, and very readable.

[AcademicEditor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank A. von Hippel has woven a really interesting history of how human knowledge of chemistry has shaped our world in profound ways. Often the solutions humans find have unintended consequences that must be addressed. The four major sections are Famine, Plague, War, and Ecology, but there is much overlap as the main problems have secondary effects. Thought-provoking and humbling.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Jon Waterhouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is interesting, but it could have done with a good edit. In the early chapters, just when you think you are done with people who believe in spontaneous generation another one crops up, but mostly because the author has arbitrarily decided to hop back thirty or forty years.

An concrete example of why this makes the book somewhat annoying to read is how the book deals with Otto Ambros, who was a senior manager at IG Farben and received a sentence for war crimes at Nuremberg. Below are the all the mentions of Ambros in the order that they appear in the book:

Otto Ambros selected Auschwitz concentration camp as location for manufacture of synthetic rubber and oil
Negotiated with Himmler for "rent" of slave labour
Wrote "Our new friendship with the SS is proving very profitable"
Jan 17, 1945 Ambros busied himself with destruction of document related to IG Farben's wartime activities
Jan 23, 1945 Ambros travelled back to Germany to destroy other IG Farben records
US military (Nuremberg) tribunal sentenced Ambros to eight years for war crimes
---
Ambros worked with Schrader in the development of sarin
At May 1943 meeting with Albert Speer and Hitler, Ambros pointed out Allies had superior capacity to develop chemical weapons
(US) Operation Paperclip recruited more than 1600 Nazi scientists.. one of whom was Ambros, recruited by Lt Col Philip Tarr
Immediately after the war Tarr dispatched Ambros without escort to obtain blueprints of tabun-producing machinery
At Ambros's request Tarr tried to get all Nazi chemical warfare scientists released
Ambros eventually slipped into the French zone; a British officer said Tarr had taken steps to assist him to evade arrest
Tarr arranged for Ambros to meet with a Chemical Warfare Servioce inspector
Other US Army officials repeatedly tried to lure Ambros out of the French Zone to arrest him
Ambros foiled an attempt to lure him out of the zone
At the end of 1944 Ambros ordered his deputy von Klenck to destroy all documents on on war gases and contracts between IG Farben and the Wehrmacht, but von Klenck placed some key documents in a steel drum and buried them on a farm
Major Tilley (colleague of Tarr) discovered Tarr had his own agenda that ran counter to their joint leadership of CIOS; infuriated over Tarr's actions protecting Ambros
Tilley discovered buried drum of documents on October 27, 1945. "Two days later, BIOS issued its own arrest warrant for Ambros"
Ambros remained safe in French Zone for another three months before being captured on Jan 17, 1946 as he attempted to leave the zone
Tilley interrogated Ambros before transferring him to Nuremberg jail
Ambros convicted in Case VI of Nuremberg trials, received early release in 1951 which enabled him to work for US Chemical Corps

If you read through all that you can see that being convicted at Nuremberg is mentioned twice, that mentions of trying to get him out of the French zone appear before the mention of the arrest warrant; that there is early mention of destruction of records, but that it then turns up again with specific reference to the undestroyed records that allowed him to be convicted. A small part of the disorder is because there is a section (that starts where the line is) dedicated to nerve gas, rather than IG Farben activities more generally, but it doesn't really account for much of the mess.

Before you get to the end of that section you run into a discussion of post-war work by the allies that was partly based on the efforts of the recruited Nazis, but really has no relation to IG Farben, and you get sentences like this: "The Chemical Corps thus used its wartime experience and expertise to expand its appeal to society by conducting experiments and field trials that ushered new pesticides into the marketplace". There are a few references back to IG Farben work, as it discusses new pesiticides and chemical weapons, but mostly it should be, IMO, in a separate chapter.

[Mar*Grieta* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Achievements of human intelligence that changed a modern world.

First of all, I want to say thank you to the author for bringing all these facts, events and important people of the world’s science into one book. I wasn’t familiar with quite a few things from this book, and I was eager to keep reading it. So many events from the past, that are making our lives so much easier and worry free these days. And the most important thing, everything is so well explained all through the course of the book.

This book is about work of different scientists, from different parts of the world that were working towards the same target. Stop spread of diseases and improving quality of life. Which is fascinating on its own. If you think about it, there was no technologies few centuries ago, and scientists communicated via letters, it was a long process. A lot of ideas were refused, but after some time overlooked and accepted. I was fascinated by so many facts of this book. Vaccination, Pasteurization, Fertilizers, Pesticides are all great innovations in chemistry that evolved over the past century!

Major problems and how scientists fought against them that are covered in this book;
• Famine (Potato blight, mainly in Ireland and issues with French Vineyards).
• Plague( Marsh Fever, Black Vomit or Yellow fever, Jail Fever, Black Death).
• War ( mainly food stock issues and chemical weapons developed during the WWI and WWII).
• Ecology ( aftereffects of human experiments with toxic chemicals).

My favourite part of the book is F.Haber. For certain, obvious reasons not many people are familiar with this scientist and his researches. No doubt, his scientific carrier was very controversial, due to invention of chlorine and other deadly gas substances that were used during the war. BUT he also invented fertilizers and enhanced productivity of crops, that improved famine and economical situation not only in Europe but in Chile too. He was awarded with a Nobel Prize in 1918 for this research.

Pesticides is third most discussed topic in this book after yellow fever and malaria. Some of them were invented for good but ended up being used for inhuman reasons during the war times (DDT, Zyklon, Zyklon B). Mentions of “Silent Spring” book by Carson made me think a lot. All these chemicals that we are using on a daily basis, causing more and more pollution and damage to flora and fauna, eventually will have an impact on us all. We have to learn how to take care of the nature.

I would recommend this book to everyone! In my opinion everyone can find something interesting and useful from it. And with no doubt it deserves 5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟.

Thank you Netgalley, for an ARC.

[Alan Kolok · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of The Chemical Age, a book that I have been wanting to read since for quite some time. The book did not disappoint.

Starting with the Irish potato famine, von Hippel traces humanity's history with synthetic chemicals across the last few centuries. At first, the history is benign, as drug discovery is put to use combating infectious diseases. The story however quickly takes a nefarious turn as these chemicals are viciously turned, first into tools of genocide, then into tools of environmental destruction.

While it must have been tempting for the author to classify the principle characters within each of the book's chapters into saints or sinners, he resists the temptation. He does not proselytize, but rather lets the history speak for itself, allowing the reader to put that history into context. While some could read the book as mankind's continual efforts to maximize the common good through chemistry, others could read the same history and see it as mankind's inability to successfully avoid chemicals misuse. Regardless of the reader's orientation, van Hippel provides us all with a humanistic view of the history and lets us decide what to do with it.

The history of our dichotomous relationship with synthetic chemistry needed to be told and Dr. von Hippel has done an excellent job of doing so. This is an excellent source book of information, and I intend to refer back to it frequently. It is also written in manner that makes the history approachable, as it takes advantage of numerous quotes and passages that have been said or written by the principle characters within.

If you are interested in mankind's turbulent relationship with synthetic chemistry, particularly as it pertains to the last one hundred years or so, you may want to add this book to your library.

[Ksensei K · Rating 4 out of 5]

An educational and engagingly written book covering a smorgasbord of significant scientific achievements of the several previous centuries: discovery of causes and vectors of diseases from malaria to the plague, creation of chemical weapons and pesticides, eventual attempts at their containment etc.

The book is organized into chapters each dedicated to a scientific advancement in chemistry (thought it is broader than that). The topics are covered roughly chronologically and roughly in thematic chunks, though the organization principle is elusive.
The writing is very accessible and reads breezily. No advanced scientific knowledge is needed to get into the book and understand everything. It delivers both, the main topic being addressed and related factoids in a consistent manner. I feel like I have learned a lot.

My one qualm with the book is a seeming lack of thesis. The chapters end somewhat abruptly, hardly drawing any conclusions, and though the last chapter, covering Rachel Carson and greater public engagement with increasing regulation of pesticides and other achievements described in the book, might have been meant as a sort of coda, it doesn’t really come across that way. In the conclusion the author reveals he is related to James Franck and his family has been intimately present for some of the events he covers. That seems to explain the motivation for the book at least partially, and it doesn’t take away from it one bit.

Overall, a recommended read for those looking for a light-hearted yet informative pop-science book.

Thanks to NetGalley for a digital ARC of the book.

[Ronda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. If you want to understand the terrible history of pesticides (and perhaps better understand why we were so willing to poison ourselves in the hopes of ridding ourselves of deadly diseases), this is a must read.

I knew mosquitoes have killed more humans than any other living thing, but still had no idea that disease vectors like body lice, fleas, and mosquitoes have played such a critical role in so many wars. Von Hippel walks us through our history of battles and world wars, taught in schools as man vs man, but revealed by the author to be man vs insects (more specifically, disease vectors) with one human side falsely claiming the unearned victories over the other side, decimated by a far more deadly foe.

I can understand now why this book took the author eight years to write - the background historical details are outstanding. As a nurse, I better understand how harmful pesticides are, and also have a healthier respect for some of the problems they were sometimes developed to address.

I also see how greed drives some toward our worst examples of humanity. We too easily become Life Destroyers and pesticides, whether they are used to purposely kill humans or to destroy other vibrant lifeforms for our benefit, is the tool wielded for our own eventual destruction, whether it be moral, physical, or both. A common saying is that "a man reaps what he sows." Pesticides are poisons that we cover our yards, our homes, our food, our water and ourselves with in the hopes of destroying what we do not want. Destruction is what we sow and destruction is what we will reap.

[Patrick Pilz · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started reading this book, I kept checking the title, whether I am in the right book. It starts off like one of these books about epidemiology, like the ones we read so many of during the current crisis. But after a third into the book, you can see that Frank A. Hippel sets the stage, the motivation for our early endeavors into applied chemistry to contain outbreaks and diseases. Pretty much everyone was well intended..Chemical weapons, it turns out, where more a by product in the war on diseases and pandemics, and true criminals were rare.
As these stories of early applied chemistry evolve, we learn about the unintended consequences. While these applications helped to manage one health risk, they sometimes creates others. The stories are well written and deeply embedded in world history. Do not expect a book about chemistry, expect a book about the evolution of chemistry, from the development of its needs, solution approaches and results.
The books slow built-up, eye-popping middle section ending with a bang makes this book really enjoyable even if you are not a big fan of non-fiction.

[Anjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get through this since there is a lot of information. Not all of it can be retained in the long term (at least by me) but were fascinating while I was reading them. A background in chemistry may not be strictly required but might help elevate the understanding of the depth of the discoveries, the fallback from them all are things even the layperson can absorb (no pun intended)
Surprisingly, the book begins at the potato famine (I just read about the potato last month). It focuses on one issue and the subsequent chemical solution that was proposed. What this chemical solution then led to is then elaborated upon. The writing is simple and does not sound too technical( it does go into the chemical names and families). The division by disease makes it simpler to set it aside and pick it up without losing out on the narrative thread.
It covers a significant portion of the chemical advancement and the deployment of those solutions through the last century or so.
The author's personal information towards the end further enhances the effect.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers; the review is entirely based on my own reading experience

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full to the brim of interesting facts and details and trivia (eg. Nernst, the man behind the Third Law of Thermodynamics, didn't charge his battery with the right polarity and his car broke down on the way to take a position at a university), but the style of citation is atrocious: a continuous stream of numbers 1 to 537, but no page numbers because many are reused, no footnotes at all, and a lot of the sources themselves seem, to be honest, a little weak. I would have liked a more critical engagement with the issues and evidence, but it's not that type of book, unfortunately.

For what it was, a simple narrative on four fronts (famine, plague, war, and ecology), beginning with the potato blights (think: Irish Potato Famine) and ending with Rachel Carson, it's not a bad choice by any means. It would be a valuable text for the common reader and probably could fit well in an undergrad science history class, but it probably shouldn't be used alone. He picks his topics narrowly and necessarily leaves out quite a lot of incidents and trends that would have been interesting to read about in his engaging style.

[Yann Roshdy · Rating 4 out of 5]

War isn't like in the movies. The war against nature and hunger is part of the struggle against other men. Ecology is watching the world as layers of stochastic systems that can't be singled out to systematize, comportmentalize and maximise production et efficiency. Cybernetics never worked and never will. The struggle of the 19-20th century with ideologies (is still) was caused by hubris and progressism as an idea of history. We thought physics, chemistry and other advancements were pure in nature. We didn't think pesticides would have long, chonic and distant effects because of that hubris and progressist ideologies.

[Amy Berti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a chemistry girl by any stretch of the imagination. This book of stories brought the history of chemistry in the modern era to life for me. It gave example after example of how chemicals impacted our natural world and the people living at each story’s time for good (against famine, malaria, plagues) and bad (warfare, residue in nature and in homes). The book explores the social and political impact these discoveries had on the culture and on the personal and professional lives of the chemists who discovered them. So much research is provided as evidence it is both enlightening and enjoyable to read.

[George F Greenwald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the very finest books that I have read. Frank von Hippel really described the ways in which chemistry was used to eliminate mosquito and other insect born diseases. He then goes on to describe how the chemists in cooperation with government went overboard with attempting to eliminate all insects as a way to improve crop yield and people's freedom from nuisance. That of course resulted in a terrible destruction of all animal species and even the elimination of those insects whtch are beneficial to humans and animals. The compromise between use and non-use of chemical agents continues still. This is a book that should be nominated for a Nobel prize. Bravo Mr. von Hippel.

[Manish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best book to pick up during a pandemic. However, von Hippel has written a wonderful work tracing the history of man's fight with diseases and pests with the help of science and the chemical industry. How this war eventually ended up in the hands of the military-industry complex (Auschwitz) and the subsequent global movement against DDT (Silent Spring) etc formed the middle and the later parts of the book.

I learnt a lot. Pick it up if this sort of stuff interests you.

[Cliff Kowall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. It was engaging. Focus was on the impact on society but was not afraid to talk about chemistry and both the positive and negative aspects. Talked about the potato famine, typhus, malaria and the plague in the context of the transmission vectors and how various chemical developments helped to control them. He also points out when the positive development took a dark turn into warfare. I heartily recommend this book.

[Scott Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting history of chemistry showing the relationship between chemical warfare weapons and pesticides. Reading the epilogue you see the author's family history and involvement with this topic (his great grandfather was involved) and motivation for writing this book. Also interesting to see how Silent Spring was received and trashed when it was published, just like all the climate deniers are doing today.

[Stan Lanier · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Chemical Age, subtitle: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth. I thought this might be interesting, but afraid it might be a bit dry. Von Hippel works some magic and makes this a brisk, while informative, tale. In the end, it becomes highly personal, as some major players are his close relatives. It has been my surprise read of 2022, outshining all my expectations as I began the book.

[Anett Kovacs]

The Chemical Age by Frank A. von Hippel chronicles the relationship between chemicals and pests, diseases, and war. The author describes in great detail how pesticides shaped the modern world - from agricultural development to war and large-scale destruction up until the movement to protect the environment.
It is a fascinating account written in a comprehensible and digestible way.

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a great view for the most important events related to the Irish potato blight 🥔, malaria 🦟, typhus, plague, 🚿 gas - Zyklon B, DTT ( Rachel Carson), Love Canal, pesticides,etc. For those who are curious about these, is a great start, and for those who have more knowledge is a good overview.

[Michał Wojtera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story on how good intentions get corrupted by greed, politics and short term thinking. How too much of a good thing leads to disaster. A must read for better understanding of the world we live in.

[Leila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a fun read, because of the grim subject matter, but an interesting one. I found the sections on the potato blight and on the reception of Rachel Carson's work to be the most informative, as I was somewhat familiar with the content in other sections.

[Joseph Puciloski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative without being dry. Very eye-opening.

[Mills College Library]

632.9509 V9468 2020

[Li Keira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed with information and very stimulating! I’ve never really had much experience with chemistry but this book was nice to read for me still. A lot of history and stories.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat odd book. The author is the son (or grandson) of Holocaust survivors. And although he recognizes the great good chemicals have wrought he is also a child of Silent Spring (as am I.)

The net result is sort of a muddled viewpoint. Mind you I don't suppose I or anyone else except silly zealots has a less muddled view.

[Roberto Bovina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Racconta minuziosamente, la storia della peste salvo lasciere in sospeso alla fine, la materia delle scoperte scientifiche legate alla chimica, come le medicine che hanno permesso di sconfiggere le malattie epidemiche ad esempio.
Si dilunga nella spiegazione di come è stata l'evoluzione e la diffusione di un certo fungo o batterio. Ogni capitolo mi sembra che finisca con qualcosa mancante. Parte Seconda sulle scoperte di veleni durante le guerre mondiali, principalmente dovute ai ricercatori tedeschi e americani. Insetticidi e gas nervini usati nei campi di concentramento. La scoperta del DDT, diventato dopo la seconda guerra mondiale insetticida più utilizzato in agricoltura e nella eradicazione di zanzare e mosche portatrici di malattie.
Infine, l'ultima parte ruota attorno al movimento ecologico nato negli anni 50-60 soprattutto grazie al libro Silent Spring di Rachel Carson.

[standingontheshouldersofgiants · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on this subject I've read so far