The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another
In the bestselling tradition of Stuff Matters and The Disappearing Spoon — a clever and engaging look at materials, the innovations they made possible, and how these technologies changed us.
In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions — clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips — and reveals how they shaped the human experience.
Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer. She describes, among other things, how our pursuit of precision in timepieces changed how we sleep; how the railroad helped commercialize Christmas; how the necessary brevity of the telegram influenced Hemingway's writing style; and how a young chemist exposed the use of Polaroid's cameras to create passbooks to track Black citizens in apartheid South Africa.
These fascinating and inspiring stories offer new perspectives on our relationships with technologies.
Finalist for the 41st Los Angeles Times Book Award in Science and Technology and selected as one of the Best Summer Science Books Of 2020 by Science Friday.
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Publishing has a diversity problem. There are less 'diverse' books being published which limits the discoverability and reach of those authors.
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Only about 11% of books published are by BIPOC authors — so unless you specifically seek out books by BIPOC authors, you aren't likely to find very many of them organically. At Amplify, BIPOC authors are highlighted and celebrated. Here, they don't have to fight to be seen, and you don't have to fight to find them.
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