[.ca] Glass: A World History (ISBN 0226500284)

From Amazon.com:
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 \oin the 13th century\c 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

Spectacles of history:
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.

Not a history, not about glass:
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.

Glass, a necessity!:
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.