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Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century, by Stephen Fenichell
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Prophylactics to polystyrene, viscose to Velcro, saran to cellophane: For better or worse, we're married to plastic. In your refrigerator, your closet, your car it's everywhere, and it's not going away. You eat with it, work with it, play with it. Often, you even breathe it. Cheap, pliable, easily made, eminently democratic, it symbolizes everything that's both wrong and right with our culture.
In Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century, Stephen Fenichell takes a fresh, irreverent look at the substance we all love to hate. The book moves from the early astonishment at such inventions as celluloid film and waterproof clothing, to the nylon-stocking riots after World War II, to the revolutionary yet practical proliferation of Tupperware in the '50s. Fenichell's sweeping assessment of the social and economic revolutions brought on by plastic extends from the sublime to the absurd, the beautiful to the mundane, demonstrating how scientists, artists, politicians and the buying public have all molded, and also been molded, by plastic.
By turns a hero and a villain, a useless fad, an essential commodity, plastic is the ideal indicator of how people think and live. With clarity, wit and deadpan accuracy, Fenichell narrates a rollicking story about the thrills, chills and accidental spills that led to the development of plastic, about the scientists and corporations who got rich (or went bankrupt) creating and selling synthetics, and about the surprising invention that has shaped our world.
- Sales Rank: #1346609 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Harperbusiness
- Published on: 1996-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.50" h x 6.25" w x 1.25" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 368 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Amazon.com Review
Perhaps Dustin Hoffman should have paid attention to that unsolicited investment advice in "The Graduate." Plastics really are the future. Indeed these smooth oil-based synthetic polymers, available in a spectrum from rainbow-colored through raindrop transparent, are already so ubiquitous in our lives that we barely notice them. Expertly and entertainingly, Stephen Fenichell draws our attention to these shape-shifting substances; he tells us the names (do you know your polypropylene from your butadiene?), and the social history and cultural legacy of a diverse family of materials that has been given a bad rap--or maybe "wrap" is the word.
From Publishers Weekly
This compelling, often surprising saga of the invention of plastic and its transformation of society will rivet your attention, challenge your preconceptions and open up new vistas of science, history and popular culture. Unlike detractors who dismiss plastic as tacky, cheap or environmentally unsound, Fenichell, a freelance writer, celebrates its unsung role in modern life. Polyethylene airborne-radar insulation (which the British had and the Nazis didn't) helped the Allies win the air war over Europe. Computer discs and audio- and videotape make possible the information age, while plastic hearts and limbs prolong and improve human life. Fenichell unreels a resilient tale of scientific discovery, tragedies, rare ingenuity, serendipity. Upstate New York printer John Wesley Hyatt failed in his quest to make the perfect non-ivory billiard ball, but instead, in 1868, created the first thermoplastic, the ideal material for the coming Machine Age. Depressive Harvard chemist Wallace Carothers invented synthetic silk (nylon) in 1934, but committed suicide three years later, obsessed with his failure as a scientist. Tracking vinyl, rayon, Teflon, Bakelite, polyester and so forth, Fenichell carries the story to pop art, Tupperware, environmental artist Christo's outdoor wrappings and new biodegradable plastics used in ecologically fashionable fibers, dissolvable films and recyclable bottles. $20,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this history of plastic from the mid-19th century to the present, freelance writer Fenichell includes information on the use of plastics in industry (both in peace and war), the arts, popular culture, and fashion. Apparently for the sake of popular appeal, the author provides a chatty rather than analytical treatment, lacking documentation and being generally pro-plastic in tone. He makes some reference to the negative aspects of the industry, but the breezy writing style precludes his dealing with such issues thoroughly. Although his book has some use as a broad overview of the subject, a better choice would be Jeffrey L. Meikle's American Plastic: A Cultural History (Rutgers Univ., 1995). Not enthusiastically recommended.?Leigh Darbee, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
I sell plastic for a living and I still really liked this book
By Spoolman
Plastic: The Making of a Synthetic Century was written by Stephen Fenichell in 1996 as a history of the plastics business. It describes the winding path that a wide range of plastics took from the lab to the marketplace. The book is filled with many, many interesting anecdotes about the entrepreneurs who blazed that trail.
The book is organized into 13 chapters arranged, mostly, in chronological order. There is the predictable, "Just one word......Plastics" cliche from The Graduate movie used as a preface. The book begins with a late 20th century scene setting chapter. Mr. Fenichell then rolls the clock back 150 years to explain the commercialization of rubber, which he properly calls "Nature's Plastic".
There are chapters about celluloid, Bakelite, and cellophane with historical vignettes about their respective titans named Eastman, Baekeland and Brandenberger. There is a dramatic account of the tragic life of Wallace Hume Carothers, the inventor of nylon. But my favorite chapter is the one entitled, "Plast-O-Rama" which highlights the ways in which post-war America went bonkers for all things plastic. From Silly Putty and Hula Hoops to Frisbees and Tupperware and Saran Wrap, it's all in this book.
Overall it thought that the Pro's of this book were:
It's a good historical overview of plastic
It's loaded with facts about plastic
And I thought the only Con of this book was:
The history is presented out of chronological order for no apparent reason
This book will be of interest to:
20th century pop historians
polymer chemists
plastic trivia buffs
anyone who makes their living selling or producing plastic
employees or former employees of Dupont, Rohm & Haas, Eastman Kodak, Ford Motor Company and General Electric
industrial designers
material science students
manufacturing entrepreneurs
environmentalists
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Important history.
By T. Dreiling
This history is probably of more relevance and importance to our modern way of life than just memorizing a list of nineteenth century presidents.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A Fun and Enlightening read
By A Customer
I came across this book by accident,while travelling. The colorful cover caught my eye, but soon after reading a few chapters I was hooked. It's the perfect beach book. Plastic is now a word that can conjure the idea of "cheap" or "fake" but it was not always so. Fenichell starts us at the beginning of the discovery of the various materials like man-made rubber and other things we now take for granted, and tells the story of each innovation as though we are standing there in the lab and the inventor yells "Eureka!" Stories about the inventors range from funny (you know Goodyear is going to eventually succeed because of his famous name, but he has many misadventures before success arrives) to poignant, in the stories where someone desperately wants to achieve fame and fortune but their "plastic" product fails to catch on and their name disappears into oblivion.
My only criticism is the chapter on my grandfather, who plays a prominent role in the history of plastic. Fenichell simplifies and distorts some of the facts about my grandfather's company, but I forgive him in that it makes the reading light and entertaining in the end (well, a couple of chapters get bogged down by technical explanations of certain chemical processes). This is a book for anyone interested in American history, sociology,and pop psychology: plastics of all kinds make up an inextricable part of every aspect of our daily lives.
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