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A History of the International Chemical Industry: From the "Early Days" to 2000
Includes events from 1990 to 2000, when major companies began selling off their divisions, seeking to specialise in a particular business. This book explores the pitfalls these companies encountered as well as the successes of 'contrarians' - those companies that remained broad and diversified.
436 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 23, 2021
This book is the real deal; none of that airport bookstore fluff.
I have no interest in chemistry as a subject (in fact, my least favourite subject as a kid) but this book, by surveying the history of the chemistry industry and the science behind it provides great insight into the history of the modern globalized industrial society.
If anyone reading this review has any other book suggestions that shed light on the history of the modern globalized industrial society as taught through another field (or product), please let me know!
(this being my go-to recommendation for that type of book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... )
I have no interest in chemistry as a subject (in fact, my least favourite subject as a kid) but this book, by surveying the history of the chemistry industry and the science behind it provides great insight into the history of the modern globalized industrial society.
If anyone reading this review has any other book suggestions that shed light on the history of the modern globalized industrial society as taught through another field (or product), please let me know!
(this being my go-to recommendation for that type of book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... )
July 12, 2012
What can I say? This is clearly a book I used for work (how dull do you think I am?), but if you need to ever (OK, this isn't likely for most people..) know what happened when in the chemical industry, or who discovered what, or which companies did what and bought out each other, then this is the best book I've come across.
It's extremely well written/translated, is neatly separated out into logical sections (by chronology and geography, as well as items of particular interest), which makes it the ideal reference book, and is surprisingly easy to read. I spotted a few minor errors in company names etc (I got the kindle edition which is a great deal at $9.99), but nothing that really throws you.
4 stars. For people who need to know about chemicals and who made/makes what and where.
It's extremely well written/translated, is neatly separated out into logical sections (by chronology and geography, as well as items of particular interest), which makes it the ideal reference book, and is surprisingly easy to read. I spotted a few minor errors in company names etc (I got the kindle edition which is a great deal at $9.99), but nothing that really throws you.
4 stars. For people who need to know about chemicals and who made/makes what and where.
July 21, 2025
This book does a fantastic job of starting from scratch and slowly building up the modern chemical industry in front of your eyes. Starting in the 19th century, born out of demand for sulfuric acid for metal treatment, demand for alkalies for glass and soap making, and demand for bleach and dyes for cloth and textiles. The rising living standards and funds of the general populace also led to demand for consumable products like soap. Early industrial development in France and England was shaped by their divergent institutions born out of the Napoleonic Wars, with France's centralized institutions and Britain's learned societies.
Early on, the discovery of elements and their unique properties goes hand in hand with industrial uses, as the book stays at my high school understanding of chemistry in the beginning. There is a focus on deliberate research, accidental discoveries, and chemists perhaps misunderstanding the exact mechanisms, but moving in the right direction by refining folk understandings of solutions, like bones and wood ash for fertilizers which could then be isolated down to ammonia and phosphates.
There is a lot of interesting musing on the broader structure and causes of industries developing the way they did, particularly as Germany would overtake France and Britain. France's patent legislation and protection of monopolies made them uncompetitive. Germany, by having public experimental laboratories in which great chemists like Liebig could teach the next generation of chemists, also led to a strong relationship between university research and industrial research through strong state-subsidized universities. Most of these new German companies settled in the Rhineland-Westphalia region, where they would have ample supplies of mineral acids, alkalis, and aromatics by distilling from coal-tar.
The slow march of discovery of chloroform for anesthesia, carbolic acid for antiseptic, acetylsalicylic acid as aspirin, and arsenobenzene for curing syphilis emphasizes the rapid speed in which chemists marked off effective treatments for diseases and conditions that have ailed mankind for millennia.
The stabilization of nitroglycerin with kieselguhr allowed the creation of dynamite, empowering public works, mining, and the connection of the world through railway networks.
The book is full of these stories, too much to sum them all up here, but it links the chemical industry into so much of the modern world of agriculture, medicine, refrigeration, synthetic fibers, and the relationships between plastics and oil. One interesting theme was that perhaps England and France fell behind because of their reliance on their colonies for raw material, where Germany and the USA were forced to find synthetic internal solutions to their development problems. This led to them having a chemical industry that was more robust and risk-taking to try solve large production problems, much of which was born out of the blockade imposed on Germany in World War I.
My one criticism of this book is that it is a bit too uncritical of the chemical industry. While I.G. Farben's many breakthroughs on synthetic petroleum and rubber during WWII are lauded, there is no mention at all of Zyklon B and their involvement in production that supported the Holocaust. Agent Orange warrants a scarce reference, despite being a critical inflection point in the public consciousness. Aftalion claims that "no one has so far managed to prove scientifically that the chlorofluorocarbons really destroy the atmosphere's ozone layer," which is quite a remarkable statement for a book published in 2000 when this was settled in 1996.
The author clearly published this book to push back on overregulation. He argues that a lack of universally accepted scientific explanations for certain phenomena means that countries act out of an abundance of caution and overregulate sectors in a way that destroys towns economically, will stifle creation and progress. This is compounded in that parliamentary democracies often react "emotionally" in regulation, rather than scientifically, and that we are unable to have well-informed debates about all aspects of an industry's integration with society. This book tries to clearly articulate that this is the major cause of the stagnation in development and difficulties the chemical industry has faced.
I think there is some merit to this argument, but I think the argument would have landed better if I didn't feel as if he was hiding things from me to suit his triumphant narrative and instead told a more balanced story about the wonders and excesses that the chemical industry has yielded for modern civilization.
Early on, the discovery of elements and their unique properties goes hand in hand with industrial uses, as the book stays at my high school understanding of chemistry in the beginning. There is a focus on deliberate research, accidental discoveries, and chemists perhaps misunderstanding the exact mechanisms, but moving in the right direction by refining folk understandings of solutions, like bones and wood ash for fertilizers which could then be isolated down to ammonia and phosphates.
There is a lot of interesting musing on the broader structure and causes of industries developing the way they did, particularly as Germany would overtake France and Britain. France's patent legislation and protection of monopolies made them uncompetitive. Germany, by having public experimental laboratories in which great chemists like Liebig could teach the next generation of chemists, also led to a strong relationship between university research and industrial research through strong state-subsidized universities. Most of these new German companies settled in the Rhineland-Westphalia region, where they would have ample supplies of mineral acids, alkalis, and aromatics by distilling from coal-tar.
The slow march of discovery of chloroform for anesthesia, carbolic acid for antiseptic, acetylsalicylic acid as aspirin, and arsenobenzene for curing syphilis emphasizes the rapid speed in which chemists marked off effective treatments for diseases and conditions that have ailed mankind for millennia.
The stabilization of nitroglycerin with kieselguhr allowed the creation of dynamite, empowering public works, mining, and the connection of the world through railway networks.
The book is full of these stories, too much to sum them all up here, but it links the chemical industry into so much of the modern world of agriculture, medicine, refrigeration, synthetic fibers, and the relationships between plastics and oil. One interesting theme was that perhaps England and France fell behind because of their reliance on their colonies for raw material, where Germany and the USA were forced to find synthetic internal solutions to their development problems. This led to them having a chemical industry that was more robust and risk-taking to try solve large production problems, much of which was born out of the blockade imposed on Germany in World War I.
My one criticism of this book is that it is a bit too uncritical of the chemical industry. While I.G. Farben's many breakthroughs on synthetic petroleum and rubber during WWII are lauded, there is no mention at all of Zyklon B and their involvement in production that supported the Holocaust. Agent Orange warrants a scarce reference, despite being a critical inflection point in the public consciousness. Aftalion claims that "no one has so far managed to prove scientifically that the chlorofluorocarbons really destroy the atmosphere's ozone layer," which is quite a remarkable statement for a book published in 2000 when this was settled in 1996.
The author clearly published this book to push back on overregulation. He argues that a lack of universally accepted scientific explanations for certain phenomena means that countries act out of an abundance of caution and overregulate sectors in a way that destroys towns economically, will stifle creation and progress. This is compounded in that parliamentary democracies often react "emotionally" in regulation, rather than scientifically, and that we are unable to have well-informed debates about all aspects of an industry's integration with society. This book tries to clearly articulate that this is the major cause of the stagnation in development and difficulties the chemical industry has faced.
I think there is some merit to this argument, but I think the argument would have landed better if I didn't feel as if he was hiding things from me to suit his triumphant narrative and instead told a more balanced story about the wonders and excesses that the chemical industry has yielded for modern civilization.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews