Glass: A World History [Hardcover]

Alan Macfarlane (Author), Gerry Martin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226500284 | ISBN-13: 978-0226500287 | Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | Edition: 1

Picture, if you can, a world without glass. There would be no microscopes or telescopes, no sciences of microbiology or astronomy. People with poor vision would grope in the shadows, and planes, cars, and even electricity probably wouldn't exist. Artists would draw without the benefit of three-dimensional perspective, and ships would still be steered by what stars navigators could see through the naked eye.

In Glass: A World History, Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin tell the fascinating story of how glass has revolutionized the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Starting ten thousand years ago with its invention in the Near East, Macfarlane and Martin trace the history of glass and its uses from the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Rome through western Europe during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, and finally up to the present day. The authors argue that glass played a key role not just in transforming humanity's relationship with the natural world, but also in the divergent courses of Eastern and Western civilizations. While all the societies that used glass first focused on its beauty in jewelry and other ornaments, and some later made it into bottles and other containers, only western Europeans further developed the use of glass for precise optics, mirrors, and windows. These technological innovations in glass, in turn, provided the foundations for European domination of the world in the several centuries following the Scientific Revolution.

Clear, compelling, and quite provocative, Glass is an amazing biography of an equally amazing subject, a subject that has been central to every aspect of human history, from art and science to technology and medicine.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Imagine a world without glass: no light bulbs, no windshields, no telescopes, no computer screens, and, of course, no glasses. "It is true that other substances, such as wood, bamboo, stone, and clay, can provide shelter and storage," write Alan MacFarlane and Gerry Martin in Glass: A World History. "What is special about glass is that it combines these and many other practical uses with the ability to extend the most potent of our senses, sight, and the most formidable of human organs, the brain." As a piece of technology, however, glass has received almost no previous attention. Nobody knows who invented it, though the ancient Egyptians or Mesopotamians are the likeliest candidates. It wasn't until Europe's early Renaissance, however, that glass was used for something more than mere jewelry and ceramics. It played a vital role in the growth of Western science, marking a key difference between European civilization and civilization everywhere else. "The invention of spectacles [in the 13th century] increased the intellectual life of professional workers by fifteen years or more," say the authors--a development of enormous economic and cultural importance that contributed to "the foundations for European domination over the whole world during the next centuries." This is a bold and beguiling thesis, and it's a wonder that it took until now for somebody to think of it and articulate it so well. --John J. Miller

From Library Journal

MacFarlane (anthropological science, Univ. of Cambridge) and Martin, a historian of glass instruments, make the case for the centrality of glass in the artistic renaissance and scientific revolution that took place in Western Europe from the 14th to 17th centuries. They discuss the origins of glass making and trace its development and usage across centuries and multiple cultures (Europe, the Middle East, China, India, and Japan). Their discussion combines cultural, artistic, and aesthetic viewpoints of glass within these cultures with history and developments in science. The result is a thoroughly readable, carefully argued work, filled with delightful surprises (such as the discussion on eyeglasses, vision, and art). An excellent example of microhistory (think Mark Kurlansky's Cod), this is required for history of science collections and recommended for large public and academic collections. [See also William Ellis's Glass: From the First Mirror to Fiber Optics; The Story of the Substance That Changed the World.-Ed.]-Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences Inc., RTP, N.
--Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences Inc., RTP, NC
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226500284
• ISBN-13: 978-0226500287
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Glass, a necessity!, October 14, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Glass: A World History (Hardcover)

When I bought the book, I was more or less expecting a history of how glass was made and the development of glass through history. I was mistaken.
It is a narrative of how glass influenced history. Without glass the Renaissance and the Age of Science could not have happened.
A fascinating and informative history of the world as influenced by glass.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spectacles of history, January 22, 2004

By 

Donald B. Siano (Westfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Glass: A World History (Hardcover)

Glass is a wonderful material for making vessels to drink out of, but its real importance is the role that it played in the early industrial revolution. Clear glass made such instruments as the microscope, the telescope, the barometer, and the various forms of chemical laboratory vessels possible and until the invention of transparent synthetic polymers, was just about the only material that could serve.

Macfarlane and Martin ably examine the importance of the material in making possible the historical advances that were shaped by the availability of transparent glass, and convincingly show that it was well nigh essential, and we would still all be sitting around a campfire in a cave if someone had not had the good luck to discover it.

One of his more interesting theories is that the discovery really took hold because of the demand pull for it in house windows in cooler climes, and that this is why the industrial revolution had its origin in Northern Europe, rather than the Arab world with its predilection for cooling breezes. More glass for windows means less expensive laboratory glassware and other scientific instruments. Perhaps there is something to this, but I suspect there were some other factors at work as well.

This little book is an entertaining read for those interested in thinking about the broad forces that shaped our modern world and its technology. They do, though, go a little overboard at times, and the section on myopia in the orient is positively over the top.

16 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a history, not about glass, October 12, 2002

By 

Karl Stull (Peoria, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Glass: A World History (Hardcover)

This book has no detail to offer about early glassmaking, how it affected everyday lives of rich and poor, its effects on trade and culture . . . It doesn't even say what glass is.

The authors are interested in linking glass to a few well established themes of Western Civilization courses, such as the rise of the individual and the scientific revolution. Example: Is it coincidence that the great scientific minds of the medieval period were all men of the church, which for the last few centuries had been using a lot of stained glass? (The authors acknowledge that the church monopoly on higher education may help to explain this astonishing coincidence.) The discussion seems never to get beyond a few supporting quotations, and a cavalcade of disclaimers.

For a good history of glass, we may have to wait for Henry Petroski (Evolution of Useful Things) to write one.