A Most Damnable Invention: Dynamite, Nitrates, and the Making of the Modern World by Stephen Bown is a popular history on the topic. The author describes the history of gunpowder and explosives its inventors, uses and the perceived effects on the modern world. There are nice biographies of Alfred Nobel and Fritz Haber. I also found the coverage of the War of the Pacific informative. This was a conflict between Chile and an alliance of Bolivia and Peru over saltpeter deposits [made up of bird feces].
Some of the connections he makes between explosives technology and wider history seem forced. For instance he says that French refusal to use Nobels explosives led to the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. I'd consider that a rather simplistic explanation. The narrative also tends to bounce around quite a bit. A partial bibliography without footnotes.
Recommended.
Is available through Abebooks.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment