Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium
ISBN:
9781785786075
₹559
₹699
(20% OFF)
Back In Stock Shortly - Fill The Book Request Form
Details
- ISBN: 9781785786075
- Author: Lucy Jane Santos
- Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
- Pages: 320
- Format: Hardback
Book Description
'Half Lives shines a light on the shocking history of the world's toxic love affair with a deadly substance, radium. Unnerving, fascinating, informative and truly frightening.' Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five
'The story of this supposed cure-all in everyday 20th century life is fascinating and well told.' Brian Maye, Irish Times
Lucy Jane Santos presents the surprising history of radium in everyday life.
Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the 19th century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal. Half Lives tells the fascinating, curious, sometimes macabre story of the element through its ascendance as a desirable item – a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in- the-dark dance costume – to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday 20th-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element, and enthusiastic customers welcomed their radioactive wares into their homes.
Historian Lucy Jane Santos – herself the proud owner of a formidable collection of radium beauty treatments – delves into the stories of these products and details the gradual downfall and discredit of the radium industry through the eyes of the people who bought, sold and eventually came to fear the once-fetishized substance. She reveals a new history of radium, one in which the stories of those previously dismissed as quacks and fools are brought to life, as part of a unique examination of the interplay between science and popular culture.
Review
'Half Lives shines a light on the shocking history of the world's toxic love affair with a deadly substance, radium. Unnerving, fascinating, informative and truly frightening.' -- Hallie Rubenhold, author of The Five
In Half Lives, Lucy Santos transports us back to a time when consumers wondered whether mixing radium into chicken feed might result in eggs that could hard-boil themselves; when diners cheerfully drank radioactive cocktails that glowed in the dark; and when people used toothpaste containing lethal thorium oxide in the pursuit of healthy gums. Santos unpicks fact from fiction and exhibits a masterful grasp of a complex area of science history that is so often mistold. Half Lives is a delightfully disturbing book that reminds us all of the age-old Latin maxim, 'caveat emptor.' -- Dr Lindsey Fitzharris, bestselling author of The Butchering Art
In Half Lives, Lucy Santos transports us back to a time when consumers wondered whether mixing radium into chicken feed might result in eggs that could hard-boil themselves; when diners cheerfully drank radioactive cocktails that glowed in the dark; and when people used toothpaste containing lethal thorium oxide in the pursuit of healthy gums. Santos unpicks fact from fiction and exhibits a masterful grasp of a complex area of science history that is so often mistold. Half Lives is a delightfully disturbing book that reminds us all of the age-old Latin maxim, 'caveat emptor.' -- Dr Lindsey Fitzharris, bestselling author of The Butchering Art
About the Author
Lucy Jane Santos is an expert in the history of twentieth-century leisure, health, and beauty with a particular interest - some might say obsession - in the cultural history of radioactivity. She is now the Executive Secretary of the British Society for the History of Science and the Administrator for the Historical Writers’ Association. In the past, she has also worked as Secretary of the Authors’ Club and the Director of the Crime Writers’ Association. Lucy has worked for the Gourmet Society, where she was editor, and at The International Wine and Food Society. This is her first book.
Related Books
₹559
₹699
(20% OFF)
+91 9818282497
