EAN: 9780226829562

THE CHEMICAL AGE - FRANK A VON HIPPEL KARTONIER...

A dynamic and sweeping history that exposes how humankind's affinity for pesticides made the
modern world possible--while also threatening its essential fabric. For thousands of years 
we've found ways to scorch  scour  and sterilize our surroundings to make them safer. Sometimes
these methods are wonderfully effective. Often  however  they come with catastrophic
consequences--consequences that aren't typically understood for generations. The Chemical Age
tells the captivating story of the scientists who waged war on famine and disease with
chemistry. With depth and verve  Frank A. von Hippel explores humanity's uneasy coexistence
with pests  and how their existence  and the battles to exterminate them  have shaped our
modern world. 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 of
these pesticides in vivid detail  von Hippel showcases the thrills and complex consequences of
scientific discovery. He describes the invention of substances that could protect crops  the
emergence of our understanding of the way diseases spread  the creation of chemicals used to
kill pests and people  and  finally  how scientists turned those wartime chemicals on the
landscape at a massive scale  prompting the vital environmental movement that continues today.
The Chemical Age is a dynamic  sweeping history that exposes how humankind's affinity for
pesticides made the modern world possible--while also threatening its essential fabric.

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