Tales of Militant Chemistry - Alice Lovejoy ***

I felt a touch misled by the subtitle of this book - it refers to 'the film factory'. While technically accurate, I think most people think of 'the film factory' as a term for Hollywood, where in fact what's meant here are the two photochemical giants of the era, Kodak and AGFA. Admittedly, Hollywood gets plenty of mentions, but the movie studios' use of materials from these companies is totally dwarfed by their wider use.

At the heart of the book is the chemistry necessary to make film - first based on the highly flammable cellulose nitrate and then so-called safety film (apparently no more flammable than cardboard) cellulose acetate. Parts of the companies responsible for producing these products were pressed into wartime service to make darker products, in the First World War contributing to poison gas production and in the Second World War, in the case of Kodak, centrifuging to enrich uranium. The presentation always feels as if this was not just darker, but verging on evil, even though many would argue that in wartime it's perfectly normal for companies to be required to support the war effort.

I didn't particularly enjoy this book, not because of the subject per se, but rather a warning I was issued many years ago by a literary agent: always ask, is this a book or is it a magazine article. For me, this would have made an excellent long magazine article, but to turn it into a book, Alice Lovejoy has had to put in far more information than is necessary to tell the story. This level of detail is fine if you want to use the book as an academic reference, and to be fair it is published by a university press. But I was sold the book as popular science, and it really isn't.

There's plenty of interest here, both about the development of film technology and the chemistry behind it, and on the ways Kodak and AGFA contributed to wars - but it wasn't an engaging read.

Hardback:

Kindle:
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