Faux Real: Genuine Leather and Two Hundred Years of Inspired Fakes [Hardcover]

Robert Kanigel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0309102367 | ISBN-13: 978-0309102360 | Publication Date: April 5, 2007

What makes genuine leather genuine? What makes real things...real? In an age of virtual reality, veneers, synthetics, plastics, fakes, and knockoffs, it's hard to know. Over the centuries, men and women have devoted enormous energy to making fake things seem real. As early as the 14th century, fabric was treated with special oils to make it resemble leather. In the 1870s came Leatherette, a new bookbinding material. The 20th century has given us Fabrikoid, Naugahyde, Corfam, and Ultrasuede. Each claims to transcend leather's limitations, to do better than nature itself - or at least to convince consumers that it has. Perhaps more than any other natural material, leather stands for the authentic and the genuine; Genuineleather, like a single German word, is how we think of it. Its animal roots etched in its pores and in the swirls of its grain, leather serves as cultural shorthand for the virtues of the real over the synthetic, the original over the copy, the luxurious over the shoddy and second-rate. From formica, vinyl siding, and particle board to cubic zirconium, knockoff designer bags, and genetically altered foods, inspired fakes of every description fly the polyester pennant of a brave new man-made world. Each represents an often passionate journey of scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial innovation. "Faux Real" explores this borderland of the almost-real, the ersatz, and the fake, illuminating a centuries-old culture war between the authentic and the imitative.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kanigel, a professor of science writing at MIT, whose biography of the Indian mathematician Ramanujan was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle and L.A. Times Book awards, offers a study of leather-its history, chemistry and place in human culture-and the corollary story of the effort to develop a synthetic substitute. Despite its millennia-long presence in human history, and the many substitutes that have been tried-Fabrikoid, Corfam and Naugahyde among them-the subject doesn't sustain interest. Kanigel is a sound researcher and an engaging writer, offering an abundance of facts, for example, the Smithsonian's leather boots made of human skin (their origin is not nefarious and they are not on display) and the availability of vegan condoms. And Kanigel brings drama to Du Pont's decadelong search for a synthetic leather; the resulting Corfam-hailed as being as revolutionary as nylon-was a failure as infamous as the Edsel. The author falters, however, with dull descriptions of the chemical processes used to create various synthetic products. PETA gets some attention, and Kanigel intelligently takes time to address the philosophical question of the importance of faux versus real.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"A sound researcher and an engaging writer. . . . Kanigel intelligently takes time to address the philosophical question of the importance of faux versus real."—Publishers Weekly

"Fantastic cultural history. Smart and sensual prose. You'll never look at your Manolos the same way again."—Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash

"Kanigel's book is an easy and pleasurable read. . . . A tribute to leather's physical and tactile properties and to humankind's ingenuity and persistence in attempting to imitate them."—Design and Culture

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press (April 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0309102367
• ISBN-13: 978-0309102360
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,525,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Kanigel was born in Brooklyn, NY, but for most of his adult life has lived in Baltimore, MD, where he lives today. He has written seven books, on wildly differing subjects. His second, "The Man Who Knew Infinity," was named a National Book Critics Circle finalist, a Los Angeles book Prize finalist, a New York Public Library "Book to Remember," and has been translated into Italian, German, Greek, Chinese, and other languages. His latest book, for which he was named recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, is "On an Irish Island," set on a windswept island village off the coast of Ireland.