Garfield: Mauve
From Scienticity
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Simon Garfield, Mauve : How One Man Invented a Color that Changed the World. New York : W. W. Norton, 2001. 222 pages.
One hundred and fifty years ago, an eighteen year-old Willima Perkin accidentally invented a color that took the world by storm. This book is the story of that accident and its consequences.
Before mauve, chemistry was mostly a theoretical affair; after it, chemichal research sparked industry to new heights of applications and investigations into possilibities no one had even considered before. The results of Perkin's discovery led to the development of explosives, perfume, photography, many modern medicines and plastics.
Garfield tells his story with verve and imagination. This is definitely a book worth reading.
-- Notes by SJB
