The Plastics Age: From Bakelite to Beanbags and Beyond

Rating:
Summary: A Brief Overview of Technology That Touches Us All
Review: As an engineer working in the plastics field for two score years, and as an amateur historian of the subject, I was attracted to Sparke's edited book, hoping to learn more about my chosen field. And I did. First off, the book is filled with gorgeous photos, surrounded, as it were, by easy-to-read text.

To me, Part One, on prehistory through 1914, is most fascinating, quite accurate and replete with excellent photos.

Beyond that, however, I was disappointed, because the book emphasizes consumer products to the almost exclusion of industrial products. Now of course, we technical guys know all about how plastic pipe and siding carpeting has revolutionized the construction industry and about how plastics packaging has reduced produce spoilage and product pilfering. But these aren't as glitzy as lamp shades and plastic furniture and "Tupperware."

I guess this book fulfills a need if you're only interested in consumer products made of plastics. But this book offers little help to one who needs to know how plastics have revolutionized the world economy.