Volume 48, Number 12 · July 19, 2001
Glow in the Dark
By Tim Flannery
The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus
John Emsley
Wiley, 327 pp., $24.95
Histories of seemingly obscure things—from longitude to cod—have recently risen to great popularity. But until last year, when John Emsley wrote his history of phosphorus, no chemical element had been so dignified. What makes the best of such histories fascinating is their potential to allow us to see the world anew, reflected in the light of their humble subject. Emsley could not have done better in choosing phosphorus, for, as he says, this thirteenth discovered element is at once the source of one of the most terrifying means of mass destruction ever devised and one of the most useful aids to humanity ever discovered. It is, according to Emsley, 'the supreme ruler' of life on earth.
Review, 2865 words
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