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The history of plastics and other synthetic materials has recently undergone a renaissance, largely due to the efforts of the Plastics Historical Society (PHS) in England and the late Raymond B. Seymour and the NSF-funded Polymer Project of the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry in the United States. This new wave of polymer history has involved the questioning of myths, a new emphasis on cultural aspects, and greater attention to the economic and political context--themes that are dealt with in this volume in the RSC's Special Publication Series, which contains the nine papers presented at the Symposium on the History of Synthetic Materials, organized by the RSK and PHS, chaired by Peter J. T. Morris, and held at the RSC Annual Chemical Congress, Southampton, England, on April 6--7, 1993. This book covers "the history of synthetic materials from the natural and semisynthetic materials of the Victorian era to the more modern plastics developed during and after the Second World War."
Technical, cultural, art historical, and scientific perspectives are brought to bear on the subject, and previously unpublished archival materials shed new light on crucial events in the chemical development of plastics. For example, Colin J. Williamson challenges the common assumption that no plastics industry existed before the advent of Celluloid, and Susan T. I. Mossman presents the case for the Englishman Alexander Parkes as its inventor and father of the plastics industry in opposition to the common belief that the American John Wesley Hyatt deserves this credit (see Seymour R. B.; Kauffman, G. B. J. Chem. Educ. 1992, 69, 311). While he acknowledges Leo H. Baekeland's preeminent role, Percy Reboul stresses the important contributions of the English polymath Sir James Swinburne to the development of Bakelite. Jeffrey L. Keikle, the sole American contributor to the volume, examines the cultural meanings of synthetic plastics from the perspective of a design historian, and Peter J. T. Morris discusses the role of government policy and the two world wars in creating a viable synthetic rubber in Germany and the United States. The remaining four papers, by practicing workers in the field, extend the history of synthetic materials into modern times and deal with such topics as polyethylene, engineering plastics (especially polyacetals), acrylics, and fiber-reinforced composites.
This slim, but well-documented, volume will be of interest to polymer and materials chemists; historians of chemistry, science, and technology; and chemical educators concerned with a branch of chemistry that impacts our daily lives in a multitude of ways.
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