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Hugh Aldersey-Williams
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Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

by Hugh Aldersey-Williams (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 out of 5 stars 647
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In the spirit of A Short History of Nearly Everything comes Periodic Tales. Award-winning science writer Hugh Andersey-Williams offers readers a captivating look at the elements—and the amazing, little-known stories behind their discoveries. Periodic Tales is an energetic and wide-ranging book of innovations and innovators, of superstition and science and the myriad ways the chemical elements are woven into our culture, history, and language. It will delight readers of Genome, Einstein’s Dreams, Longitude, and The Age of Wonder. 
Previous page
  1. ISBN-13
    978-0061824739
  2. Edition
    Reprint
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Ecco
  5. Publication date
    March 29, 2011
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    8601 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

For the UK edition: “[F]ascinating and beautiful. . . . If only chemistry had been like this at school. . . . [A] rich compilation of delicious tales.”

From the Back Cover

Like the alphabet, the calendar, or the zodiac, the periodic table of the chemical elements has a permanent place in our imagination. But aside from the handful of common ones (iron, carbon, copper, gold), the elements themselves remain wrapped in mystery. We do not know what most of them look like, how they exist in nature, how they got their names, or of what use they are to us. Unlocking their astonishing secrets and colorful pasts, Periodic Tales is a passionate journey through mines and artists’ studios, to factories and cathedrals, into the woods and to the sea to discover the true stories of these fascinating but mysterious building blocks of the universe.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004J17VTO
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco; Reprint edition (March 29, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 29, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 8601 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 451 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0061824739
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 647

About the author

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Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Hugh Aldersey-Williams

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My latest book is Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe, which won the Samuel Pepys Award in 2021. Huygens was the greatest scientist working in the vital period between Galileo and Newton, when the scientific revolution was gathering pace. He discovered Saturn's ring, invented the accurate pendulum clock, and devised a wave theory of light far ahead of its time.

More even than Newton, he can be called the father of modern science, not only for his introduction of rigorous mathematics into the analysis of problems in physics, but also for his central role in building the pursuit of science as a Europe-wide collaborative project. Huygens, a Dutchman, became the leading light of the French Academy of Sciences and the first foreign fellow of the Royal Society of London. ‘The world is my country, science my religion,’ he once said.

Previous books include:

Tide: The Science and Lore of the Greatest Force on Earth, which explores the complex science of the tides with literary and artistic references and my own travels to tidally curious places. The Sunday Times called it ‘profound and powerful’ and ‘a delight to read’.

The Adventures of Sir Thomas Browne in the 21st Century, which won the East Anglian Book Award and was longlisted for the American PEN Biography Award. Browne was an extraordinary figure of the 17th century – a physician, a philosopher, and writer and a myth buster. My book seeks to reclaim Browne from academic obscurity, and to show how his ideas - about science, nature, religion and tolerance - are as relevant now as they were during his own troubled times.

Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements, a Sunday Times bestseller that gives a cultural history of the chemical elements. I curated an exhibition of contemporary artworks based on many of the elements at Compton Verney in 2015.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
647 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Michael L. Sweet
5.0 out of 5 stars Breaking Bad primer
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2014
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I love this book but it is taking me awhile to get through it. I find it very entertaining and informative. It can be like a Sherlock Holmes detective story at times, which I love. I wish some chapters were given more detail with certain elements but I appreciate the effort. The stories behind these elements are sometimes very shocking. The excitement the author shows is infectious. I wish I had the periodic table available, or that he included it, to go along with some of his explanations. I also don't know how much I can remember from some of these stories so I may have to go back and start the reading over. It isn't the writing but sometimes it can get a little bogged down in details. I just finished watching the Breaking Bad series so I may go back to this book while the terminology is still in my head. Overall, I think the writing is wonderful and I am glad that I bought this book. I just need to devote the time to just this book instead of reading three or four at the same time.
8 people found this helpful
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The Reverend Doctor
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book for a chemistry teacher and students of chemistry.
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2014
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As a chemistry teacher, I found "Periodic Tales" to be a very nice supplement to my understanding of the elements insofar as it gave me many anecdotes to relate to my students about the inhabitants of the iconic periodic table. In the past, I have encouraged students (and occasionally required them) to read Primo Levi's "Periodic Table," a book, not so much about the elements themselves as one of Levi's personal history with various elements. "Periodic Tales" gives more explicit history and context for numerous elements. As such, it is less metaphorical than Levi's series of short stories.

I have now chosen "Periodic Tales" as my summer reading book club selection, so a handful of next year's crop of chemistry students will come into the class with a great deal of background about the elements that we study in class. I'm looking forward to calling on them to relate Aldersey-Williams's tales.

The only reason I did not give "Periodic Tales" five stars is that it may have gone on just a little too long. There was a certain sameness to the author's treatment of the later elements.
5 people found this helpful
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Marilyn
5.0 out of 5 stars A social history of the Periodic Table
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2022
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Wonderful book even for non-scientists. Fascinating history of each element. It was well written and has a great cover. I've bought several for gifts for friends and family who really enjoyed it. It sort of gets into the weeds at the end of the book when covering ephemeral elements that only exist briefly but the the majority of the book is terrific.
2 people found this helpful
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Karl Janssen
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting trivia lacking structure
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2018
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In his 2011 book Periodic Tales, science journalist Hugh Aldersey-Williams delves deeply into the history, science, and lore of the periodic table and the chemical elements catalogued within it. As an avid collector of element samples, Aldersey-Williams applies his acquisitive enthusiasm for the subject to his research, tracking down sundry data on each element with thoroughness and verve. If you are at all fascinated by the fundamental building blocks of matter, this book will certainly teach you much on the subject. Its main fault, however, is that it fails to give any coherent structure to what feels like a collection of miscellaneous tangential anecdotes.

The subtitle of Periodic Tales proclaims it a “Cultural History,” a phrase which in this case seems intended to relinquish the responsibility of being a science book and give Aldersey-Williams license to write whatever he feels like. The contents of the book are arranged very haphazardly, making it feel like a collection of unrelated magazine articles, similar to what you might find in a National Geographic but not quite as engaging. Much of what you’ll read in this book seems like it could be postscripted with the phrase, “. . . but I digress.” When Aldersey-Williams sticks to science history and discusses how the elements were discovered, isolated, or in some cases created, or how they are utilized in industry, the book is really quite fascinating, but when he goes off on the perceived gender of a particular element, an instance where an element is mentioned in a poem, or how a relatively unknown contemporary artist made a sculpture out of some weird metal, interest quickly wanes. At one point he interviews someone who lives in a town that’s mentioned in a Thomas Hardy novel, and he spends two pages talking about this novel, even though it has nothing to do with the elements. What it all adds up to is fuel for some future game of Trivial Pursuit, but even after having just finished the book I find myself struggling to remember much of the details because they weren’t presented in any sort of cohesively organized narrative.

The book is divided into five sections which could not be more arbitrary—Power, Fire, Craft, Beauty, and Earth. Because the author often discusses more than one element in each chapter, he can’t present them in order by atomic number, but couldn’t he at least have arranged them by chemical family? Or why not go with a chronological organization, from ancient alchemy to contemporary nuclear physics? Wouldn’t that have been a better way for the reader to experience the “Cultural History” promised by the subtitle?

Aldersey-Williams is a Brit, and the book appears to have been written for a British audience. That’s not a criticism, just a clarification for American readers, who won’t always get the author’s jokes or pop culture references. That won’t hinder your overall understanding of the text. He conducts most of his research and interviews in Britain, though he does travel elsewhere in the world when the elements lead him there.

For the most part I enjoyed reading Periodic Tales, but the disjointed patchwork approach made it feel like a long haul. If you’re really interested in chemistry and enjoy reading about the history of science you will find much to like here, but there will likely also be moments when you’ll question the relevance of what you’re reading and wonder if it’s worth your time.
99 people found this helpful
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Evil Voodoo Celt
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating but flawed
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2020
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An involving and lucid romp through the elements and their history. Docked one star (it really should be a star and a half) for cynical and condescending humor, a bit of classism, and some outright factual errors- sorry, Latin words aren't derived from Sanskrit- they both come from Proto-Indo-European. Still, both fun and informative.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Sandra Sieverts
1.0 out of 5 stars Leider beschädigt
Reviewed in Germany on December 29, 2021
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Bitte um Kontaktaufnahme.
Das Buch ist beschädigt geliefert worden.
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Sandra Sieverts
1.0 out of 5 stars Leider beschädigt
Reviewed in Germany on December 29, 2021
Bitte um Kontaktaufnahme.
Das Buch ist beschädigt geliefert worden.
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Doug H
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting approach to what is a scientific subject. ...
Reviewed in Canada on February 24, 2017
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An interesting approach to what is a scientific subject. The science, history of the discovery, and the cultural aspects of each element are described in a knowledgeable -- and often entertaining way. It is a book that one can dip into at any point, leave after a few pages, then come back later without loss.
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Enrico Bellandi
3.0 out of 5 stars Un pò prolisso
Reviewed in Italy on September 19, 2014
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Parla principalmente dell'utilizzo dei vari elementi per la realizzazione di pigmenti per coloranti o opere d'arte ed architettoniche.
Interessanti le storie sulle origini degli elementi ma è sempre prolisso, mooolto prolisso, sull'utilizzo di un certo elemento per qualche opera d'arte.
Nessun accenno sulle proprietà fisico/chimiche del materiale.
Comunque scritto bene e richiede un livello di conoscenza della lingua inglese non troppo elevato.
Ok se siete artisti, sconsigliato a chimici e fisici non appassionati d'arte e pittura.
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François B
5.0 out of 5 stars Que d'histoires pour une centaine d'éléments...
Reviewed in France on August 29, 2012
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Cette fameuse table de Mendeliev m'a, depuis le lycée, fasciné par sa (relative) simplicité et la richesse de ce qu'on peut en déduire.
J'ai beaucoup apprécié toutes ces histoires, que l'auteur raconte sur un ton très "british" sans dédaigner pour autant la culture française, au point d'insérer des jeux de mots "en français dans le texte" (Anti-moine...).
One person found this helpful
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Matthew Boynton
3.0 out of 5 stars A Poetic Exploration
Reviewed in Japan on January 5, 2013
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The Periodic Table is a thing of ordered beauty, but Aldersey-Williams' text seems to meander aimlessly amongst the elements, with his poetic sensibilities sometimes overwhelming solid scientific explanation.
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