Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History, by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
354 pages plus acknowledgements and index, illustrations of molecules
Library: 540.9 LEC
This book has nothing to do with nuclear physics, but rather chemistry, but it has such fascinating stories to tell that I thought I'd recommend it here.
Description
Could the failure of Napoleon's 1812 western European campaign be explained by something as tiny as a button? When exposed to very low temperatures, tin starts to crumble into powder. In Napoleon's regiments, everything from the officer's greatcoats to the foot soldier's trousers were fastened with buttons made of tin. Were the soldiers of the Grand Armee fatally weakened by the brutal Russian winter because their uniforms fell apart? If tin had different molecular properties and did not disintegrate in the cold, might the French have continued their eastward expansion. taking history in a different direction altogether?
Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of seventeen groups of molecules that have, like the tin of those buttons, greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. They resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and the law, they determined what we now eat, drink and wear.
Revealing the astonishing chemical connections among seemingly unrelated events, authors Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson describe how:
-Chemistry caused New Amsterdamers to be renamed New Yorkers
-A minor housekeeping mishap with a detonating cotton apron resulted in the development of modern explosives and the founding of the movie industry
-The European craving for caffeine, a mildly addictive alkaloid molecule, ultimately led to the Chinese Communist Revolution
-The Bayer Company, seeking an even more potent aspirin, became the first to synthesize heroin.
A change as small as as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a substance-which, in turn, can result in great historical shifts. With lively prose and an eye for colorful and unusual details, Le Couteur and Burreson offer a novel way to understand the shaping of civilization and the workings of our contemporary world.
Table of Contents
1. Peppers, nutmeg and cloves
2. Ascorbic acid
3. Glucose
4. Cellulose
5. Nitro compounds
6. Silk and nylon
7. Phenol
8. Isoprene
9. Dyes
10. Wonder drugs
11. The Pill
12. Molecules of witchcraft
13. Morphine, nicotine and caffeine
14. Oleic acid
15. Salt
16. Chlorocarbon compounds
17. Molecules vs malaria
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