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The Alchemy Of Air: A Jewish Genius, A Doomed Tycoon, And The Scientific Discovery That Fed The World But Fueled The Rise Of Hitler (2008)

by Thomas Hager(Favorite Author)

4.21 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307351785 (ISBN13: 9780307351784)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Crown

review 1: This is an interesting walk through history following two gifted and interesting Jewish gentlemen from Germany leading up to and through the Second World War. I enjoyed the chapters detailing the history of nitrate and how important it was to the world from the earliest days. Guano wars and exploration to pull nitrogen out of everything known to man. There is an interesting finding that as early as 1920 human beings, at least Europeans, have known that without fertilizer the world could not feed the massive population of human beings that resides here. There are a couple of things missing that, I don't know if they should be included or not but I had questions. Like, what impact did the Tambora eruption in April 1815 have, if any on the nitrate trade? This was the er... moreuption that forced Mary Shelley, Percy Shelly and Lord Byron indoors on what should have been a wonderful summer vacation on the Black Sea. Mountains of ash vomited into the atmophere with enough volume to blot out the sun and cause massive crop failures etc. It seemed with all the emphasis on the exponential growth in population of the human race, that this event might have had some significance. And, even though it was touched on as a possibility, surely there is better information available about the link between the Bread to Air machine (Haber-Bosch) and current climate change challenges. Those niggling unanswered questions aside, this is a wonderful story of two men who's expertise, intelligence and creativity created a process and machine to pull the very basic ingredient needed to feed the planet. It painted a wonderful interesting tapestry of the past givng colourful details about all parts of the world and the search for nitrate. Not only did this tell about the invention of the Haber-Bosch machine, it delved into the politics of the day, the history of industrialization and painted a picture, seldom completed in other books, of what German society was like after 1900 but before the second world war. Facinating and detailed this did a good job of helping us understand that "people" invented everything we have that was not provided by nature and God. And, above all that People have stories and some of them are very interesting. 3.5 stars. I deducted because I think some things are missing. It's still recommended, interesting and worth reading if you like history.
review 2: The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler by Thomas Hager is a gem of narrative nonfiction, blending history of science and biography of the scientists who invented the Haber-Bosch process for creating synthetic nitrates. The successful scientists who made Germany independent of the international fertilizer trade soon found themselves supplying the poison gas, ammunition and explosives that murdered six million Jews and nearly subjugated the entire continent. less

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