Technology and Culture

458 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Strong Water, Nitric Acid: Sources, Methods of Manufacture and Uses. By Thomas H. Chilton. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1968. Pp. 170; illustrations. $7.50. As the title implies, this is not primarily a historical work. Rather, it is “designed to acquaint the student and non-professional reader with the response of the inventive spirit to the interplay of political and economic forces, and to illustrate how the principles of pure chemistry are applied by the chemical engineer.” The first chapter, a historical review of the manufacture of potassium nitrate and of nitric acid from “the Alchemists through World War I” (in twenty-four small pages), draws on a few antiquated secondary sources and makes no contribution to the subject, except perhaps in explaining in a clear and authoritative manner how the modern chemical engineer interprets the technical and economic aspects of such historic manufacturing processes as the extraction of saltpeter from nitre pits and the production of nitric acid from sodium nitrate and saltpeter. It is from the remaining six chapters on the chemistry of nitrogen oxides, the oxidation of ammonia, and the modern uses of nitric acid, that the historian concerned with 20th-century industrial chemistry can derive considerable benefit. For here the author, a retired chemical en­ gineer who devoted much of his career with the Du Pont Company to the manufacture and uses of nitric acid, speaks from personal experi­ ence. For readers not centrally interested in the changing industrial technology of nitric acid in the last fifty years and unable to follow the many technical details, the book still can provide precious insight into the way in which the modern chemical engineer practices his craft. In particular Chilton makes clear how the engineer must establish and command the many scientific and economic factors bearing on his project, and through artful compromise and the exercise of his inventive ingenuity, pick his way toward a workable solution. And yet so capable and numerous are the world’s chemical engineers, that within these narrow commercial and technical parameters several very different competitive processes are often devised. Unfortunately, the author does not analyze as much as the historian might like why one process is chosen over another that is equally feasible, and about the incidental (yet often not unimportant) consequences for technological progress of such choices. Likely, most factors being equal, the choice will favor that process whose design and operational features come closest to those already familiar in the organization. In that way we identify (as in all human creations) a certain inertia or style which ob­ tains in different companies and nations. Clearly too, the choice of process depends on key personalities. Here in particular, the historically oriented reader is disappointed with Chilton’s book, for in his attempt to humanize his discipline, he largely neglects the personal factor in its practice and development. T T r r John J. Beer* * Dr. Beer, of the University of Delaware, is the author of The Emergence of the German Dye Industry. ...