The Disappearing Spoon
And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
by Sam Kean
Should I read this?
appears in Chemistry, Science, and History.
Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53) Why did the Japanese kill Godzilla with missiles made of cadmium (Cd, 48) How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation And why did tellurium (Te, 52) lead to the most bizarre gold rush in historyThe periodic table is one of our crowning scientific achievements, but it's also a treasure trove of...
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Why recommended
appears in Chemistry, Science, and History.
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Appears In
Not sure if this is the right fit?
Consider Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen. Recommended by 10 sources.
“Accidental Presidents offers eight narrative portraits of men who succeeded to the U.S. presidency without election, using anecdote-rich scenes and readable context to show how personality and circumstance interact with office power. It’s strongest as a set of self-contained stories that make succession stakes concrete for non-specialist readers; it does not prioritize dense archival argument or exhaustive methodology, so expect some interpretive generalizations and repeated themes across cases. Use it for fast historical orientation rather than scholarly deep-dives.”
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