The Alchemy of Air (4/5)

The Alchemy of air
Thomas Hager

The world is full of people. Around 7.4 Billion. We feed all these people by using fixed nitrates as a fertilizer. Without them, we could only sustain about 4 billion people. We have two german scientists to thank for this, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch. The Alchemy of Air goes into how they developed the process that feeds our planet, and how they used it to develop weapons for Germany in world war 1 and 2.

I read this book for a college class, and I really enjoyed it. It has a literary aspect to it, which makes the book read like a story instead of just history. I also really enjoyed how the author went into Haber and Bosch's personal lives, and what motivated them to do what they did. When you humanize them like this, you really have to wonder wether they were good or bad. Overall I really enjoyed this book, but it did get technical and science-y at times, which doesn't interest me as much. So the book gets a 4 out of 5 stars. I really encourage you to read this book if you are interested science or in WWI and WWII.

Thanks for reading another one of my reviews, hopefully I can write more soon, college has been very busy.