The Chemistry Book: From Gunpowder to Graphene, 250 Milestones in the History of Chemistry (Union Square & Co. Milestones)

It is clear that the use of toxic natural substances has a long history that preceded the birth of the chemical industry by many centuries if not millennia. However, non-toxic materials also have a long history of use for various processes prior to the Industrial Revolution; textile dyes for example were often sourced from plants.

THE CHEMISTRY OF LEARNING

This was the legacy of the Second World War. Take the world’s most advanced economy, cut it off from most tropical trade, and send it into overdrive—it was the perfect recipe for a synthetic revolution. The replacements came regularly and rapidly. A writer in 1943 giddily described “a regiment of new man-made materials” that was “turning old indust