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The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler

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This is a fabulous true tale exceptionally well told by Thomas Hager. History changing events in Latin America and Europe are made palpable, interesting, and are told in a way that makes you care very intensely about the protagonists involved. Especially fascinating is the telling of the history of contesting in Peru and Chile over the raw materials for nitrogen fertilizer. Get this book now and I guarantee you won't put it down and will learn much about world history and how it could have been quite different. I can't say enough good things. Just get the book now. Gee, it almost sounds like I know the author, or stand to gain somehow. I don't and just want to share this book with the world.

John Lavender

The author has written a well researched and readable account of the
early 20th century work of Carl Bosch and Fritz Haber, who set in place
modern nitrogen fixation methods. The author has done a good job of simplifying the technical details for the average reader.
As an academic chemist, I feel compelled to quibble a little with some of the details, none of which should bother most readers.
The author states(chapter 12) that nitric acid could not be made from ammonia, but could be made from cyanamide( this is in 1914). He goes on to say that Bosch built a factory to produce sodium nitrate from ammonia. This is confusing on several grounds. The presently used production of nitric acid proceeds through the catalytic oxidation of ammonia. The book mentions Bosch having a catalyst.Synthetic sodium nitrate would be produced from nitric acid. As for cyanamide, it is a source of ammonia-
therefore it is hard to understand how nitric acid could be prepared from
cyanamide, but not from ammonia, as the author suggests.
The book has a very extensive bibliography, and perhaps I can solve all these questions by recourse to the original sources. None of this makes much difference for the main points of the book.
I have read quite a bit on this general area, and this is one of the best books I have found on Haber and Bosch, and I found it interesting and provocative.
I found one puzzling entry in the bibliography which may have been included in error : a biography of Whistler, which as far as I can tell is not referenced anywhere else in the book.

The story of nitrogen is that although we have plenty of it in the atomosphere, it exists in a tripled bonded state which is not biologically useful. Carl Bosch and Fritz Haber take a new invention to a higher level to change all of this by feeding a (predicted) starving world with the production of ammonia, and accordingly, synthetic fertilizer. Needless to say, the idea of being wealthy did enter the minds of the inventors as well. But as history has its hand in most everyones' lives, so it dealt some special cards to these otherwise high achievers of the 1930 or so era. Before they could really start on their mission to save man, the Nazi boss (Hitler) needs a war factory to create explosives, which, by the way, also requires this mercurial supply of useful nitrogen so friendly to agriculture. The story intrigues one by using a most ultimate delima. The one device designed to save mankind, will now make devices than kill him. The Haber-Bosch device and its "friendly" nitrogen may have some rather strange and unforeseen consequences for our earth's environment as well. The author, Thomas Hager, formulates a breathless tale of intrigue by omitting some of the more technical aspects of nitrogen chemistry, and instead insisting on story details we need to incorportate into modern times. guyairey

History is full of excellent stories. The problem, usually, is that some of the books detailing them are poorly written or edited, reducing the audience to a handful of readers. That fate does not befall The Alchemy of Air: A Jewish Genius, A Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler, by Thomas Hager. Written extremely well, Hager makes the story of the discovery and dual use of synthetic nitrogen accessible, enlightening, and very enjoyable, The problem I have with this excellent book, and it is quite minor, is the lack of pictures of the principle characters and, maybe, some maps. However, this is one of the best books I have read in 2009.

Contents:
Introduction: Creatures of the Air
I: The Ends of the Earth
II: The Philosopher's Stone
III: Syn
Source Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

During his 1892 speech as the incoming president of the British Academy of Sciences, Sir William Crookes warned of a coming global food shortage. More people were leaving farms for the industrialized cities, reducing the number of farmers and the amount of new, available farm land was dwindling while the global population was rising. For the industrialized countries, it would mean mass starvation. His solution? The creation of synthetic fertilizer in massive amounts; as the earth was farmed, it lost vital nutrients such that subsequent crops were not as plentiful as the first ones cultivated. Even the rotation of crops did not replenish the soil fast enough. From this speech, Hager relates the interesting story of fertilizer, the many scientists that worked on a solution, and the final, incredible answer; Haber-Bosch. In 1905, Fritz Haber, a German chemist, discovered a process to remove nitrogen from the air and convert it into ammonia. Carl Bosch, a German chemist with amazing engineering skills, took Haber's desktop machine and transformed it into an industrial powerhouse that created tons of ammonia from air, saving the world from starvation. Both earned the Nobel Prize for their efforts. Along the way, Bosch eventually led the giant German chemical company, BASF and made millions. Haber achieved success as one of the world's leading scientists as a director at Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. The irony of nitrogen; it can be used to feed millions or it is a key ingredient in weapons. The latter haunted Bosch as he looked to Hitler's government for financial assistance to increase production of his huge factory and to fund research into synthetic gasoline and rubber. Haber was hampered by anti-Semitism in his beloved homeland and tried his best to assimilate, only to leave the country, and his prestigious directorship as the Nazi's rose to power. Both men, while reaching the pinnacle of scientific achievement struggled in their private lives, which makes this story more than just about synthetic nitrogen.

Hager does an excellent job of making this story accessible to the reader, regardless of the reader's knowledge of science. At times it reads as if it is a thriller, and in some cases it is. especially when Hitler rises to power and both men are struggling with that fact. Further, while this is a very interesting story of the discovery of synthetic nitrogen, Hager uses the second half of the book to focus on Haber and Bosch; fascinating, conflicted, troubled men who struggle with their legacies. In addition, the reader is given a perspective of Germany before, during, and after both World Wars which really contributes to the story. The final chapter deals with the ramifications of the Haber-Bosch machine, which is thought provoking, but is also, I think, low key. A fitting end to the book. One of the most interesting, important discoveries in human history, presented in a book that is well written and engaging, The Alchemy of Air is a book that will remain with you long after the last page has been turned.

Disclosure:
Obtained from: Library
Payment: Borrowed

This book would make a fantastic movie. It has everything, compelling personalities and corporate intrigue all set against the volatile backdrop of World War. It brings to life the struggles of the real men and women whose lives were simultaneously shaped by and helped to shape world history. The Allied attacks on the German factories alone would be spectacular on the big screen.

But the book has much that a movie could never capture. It renders historical events in exquisite detail, along with the details of the amazing science and innovation that fueled those events. This is a unique window into world history, scientific history, and personal histories that should not be missed.

The first 60 pages are about the 'guano (bird dung) war' in 1880's Chile, among the Peruvian, Bolivians and Chileans over the control of this nitrate rich substance that was considered a miraculous fertilizer, able to enrich any soil. There is discourse on nineteenth century South American labor conditions and the increasing world-wide agricultural demand of fertilizer. Some might find this interesting, but Haber's name does not appear until p65. After that, we then read about chemical bonds and thermodynamics rather than bird dung and the Peruvian economy.
Haber was an extremely ambitious, patriotic and some say greedy German Jewish chemist in the early 1900's. His motives were driven by the need to prove his Germanic loyalty as well as personal gains, The demand for nitrogenous fertilizer was especially prevalent in Germany, whose soil were not especially enriched and who had few colonies to import them. Haber realized that he could make ammonia out of thin air (79% nitrogen), and proved it on a laboratory scale. But it was Bosch whose engineering genius enabled the large scale production possible. Together they formed a chemical industry that was the envy of the world, and made them wealthy and powerful beyond their dreams.
During WW1, ammonia production became even more critical due to the war munitions industry, which used it to make explosives. Haber, but not Bosch, even went so far (to give Germany an edge) as to develop chemical warfare gases, for which he became infamous, and causing his first wife to commit suicide. After the Germans lost, he went from a war hero (Iron Cross recipient) to a war criminal. Nevertheless, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1919 (Bosch in 1931). As a sign of his devotion to Germany, he spent years trying to extract gold from seawater in order that Germany could pay off her war debts of 132 billion gold marks, which had bankrupted the nation. Unfortunately he overestimated the gold content by two orders of magnitude.
He was shattered by the rise of Hitler. He had spent his life and career on being the perfect German, even converting to Christianity. At the end, in 1934, afraid of dying in his once beloved homeland, he died of a heart attack on his way to the newly created Palestine.
Meanwhile, Bosch was relatively personally unscathed by the Nazis, but the huge chemical industry (later to become BASF) he founded was decimated by the exodus of his Jewish staff, and was eventually effectively confiscated by the Nazis. He also died a broken man in 1940.
The books ends by praising the achievements of these two men, who largely had eradicated starvation, debunked the Malthusian hypothesis, but created a historically unheard of phenomenon, obesity. Starvation still exists, but due to other socio-economic-political factors. Another detrimental effect is the rapid rise of nitrogenous wastes, especially in waterways, creating massive fishkills and algal blooms.
There is a lot of great history, biographical information and enough chemistry to intuitively understand the Haber Bosch process, whose importance has been compared to the Wright Brothers flight and Edison's electric light.

One of the members of my book club is a physician and she heard about this book at a medical conference. The club reads some nonfiction and chose it for our May meeting.

For the general-interest reader, with no background in chemistry, this is an interesting tale that doesn't require any specialist knowledge to appreciate. Hager makes the reader understand right from that start that there are few other scientific pursuits with such high stakes. In the pursuit of new sources of fertilizer, he takes us on vividly-described trips to South America's guano islands and mineral deserts. He then turns to the story of chemical manufacture.

Once Hager turns to the manufacture story, his focus is on his two scientist players, Carl Bosch and Fritz Haber. The men are very different, but both compulsively determined in their pursuits, sacrificing everything else in their lives.

I found Fritz Haber's story the most poignant. Haber was a Jew who converted to Christianity to assimilate better professionally and socially, who won an Iron Cross in World War I, then a Nobel Prize, and became one of the most celebrated scientists in Germany. None of this could save him once Hitler became Chancellor. He quickly lost his position, as did all his Jewish colleagues, large percentages of whom, like Albert Einstein, left Germany. When the non-Jewish Max Planck obtained a meeting with Hitler to tell him that the new rules depriving Jewish scientists of their jobs would be catastrophic for German science, Hitler was adamant. Haber, always a supremely patriotic German, was devastated and never recovered.

In addition to telling us the personal stories of Bosch and Haber, the author vividly illustrates the disappointments, disasters and triumphs of the scientists' quest. Further, he shows us that, like so many scientific advances, this one comes with many unanticipated and far-reaching negative consequences.

Speaking of negatives, though, I note that Hager's writing is somewhat lacking at times in descriptive force. The characters of Bosch and Haber have compelling stories, but Hager is never able to bring them entirely to life. At times, his narrative can drag a bit as well. Still, the story remains engaging to the end.

Recommended for those interested in the history of science.

Books that describe the history of scientific events are all-too-often dry tomes that spend too much time citing the background research to the science, without putting it into the social/political context required to understand why the science was important. Conversely, other, usually more readable books will ignore or misunderstand the science in an effort to provide a breezy prose for the scientific layman. Hager finely straddles the line of science, entertainment, and social context, and the book is a fascinating look at the development of arguably the most important technical achievement man has ever made - the fixation of nitrogen.

Nitrogen in the air is so notoriously unreactive that only a select set of organisms (and then only bacteria) can do it. They are also present in such low numbers that available nitrogen is usually the factor that limits growth in an ecosystem. The book starts with an overview of fertilizer, which in the hands of a lesser author would be fatal. Fortunately, the first 50 pages deals with nitrate deposits all over the world and liberally sprinkles in interesting anecdotes from the observations of Darwin to a war between Chili and Peru over what was thought to be worthless desert before the discovery of nitrates in the area. Similar to the modern concept of peak oil, people worried about tapping out all the natural sources of fixed nitrogen, leading to starvation as crop yields decreased. The German scientist Fritz Haber set to work to discover how to convert elemental nitrogen to ammonia, and eventually fellow German Carl Bosch developed a whole new field of high-pressure manufacturing required to create fixed nitrogen in bulk.

The irony is that the second-most common use for nitrates, after fertilizeer, is explosives. Since this book (and Haber and Bosch's lives) covers the period from 1870 to 1945, the rise of Germany and two World Wars are fought over the course of the book, and the explosive use of nitrogen fixation became as important (or more important) than the process for making fertilizer. WWI became known as the Chemists' War because the greatest "advances" in killing people were chemical: improved explosives, food production and preservation that allowed for larger armies, and, of course, poison gas.

The ultimate irony of Haber's life is that he, an "ethnic" Jew (as Hitler defined them), gave everything he could to gain acceptance as a German, and worked diligently for the Kaiser's war effort (and won an Iron Cross in WWI). He was discarded callously and criminally, like all Jewish scientists in Nazi Germany. Bosch was not so naive - as National Socialism took hold in Germany, he apparently predicted the course of WWII and bemoaned his technology serving to enable the Nazi war machine. Luckily he died before he could see his "baby" - the giant factory at Leuna used to produce ammonia for fertilizer and bombs, and to create synthetic gasoline and rubber - pounded to rubble by the USAAF.

Thus, the story of nitrogen fixation has an epic, tragic quality - raising two men to the pinnacle of scientific acheivement (both won Nobel Prizes), vast wealth, and public renown, only to have their acheivements sacrificed at the alter of national ambition, racism, and war. Thomas Hager doesn't waste the topic - he deftly combines the science and engineering of the story with the personal, financial, and political ambitions of Haber and Bosch with general history. The result should please everyone - scientists who aren't historians as well as historians who aren't scientists, but most importantly "armchair" historians and scientists will find this engaging and illuminating.

This book is worth reading if only to learn about the Haber-Bosch process and its significance. That said, the author does a commendable job weaving an engaging story by placing the invention aptly in the context of Germany's scientific community of the day, and the role of the invention not just in international commerce, but in the development of WWI and WWII.

My only criticism - the text is replete with typographical errors - otherwise fascinating and highly recommended.

I could not put this down. I'm a high school Chemistry teacher and I like to present material as part of a narrative, so I like reading books on the history of science. This was one of the best! What a tortured soul Haber was and Bosch also lived to see his life's work fuel Hitler's madness. If not for 2 men, and the 2 World Wars they fomented, Germany would be a truly great country. In particular I learned what IG Farben was, how they fueled the Reich, what Syn fuel was, how the Nitrogen process really worked, how Chemical Engineering was born and the amount of reparations that brought Germany to the Nazi's.