Half lives : the unlikely history of radium Cover Image

Book

Half lives : the unlikely history of radium / Lucy Jane Santos.

Santos, Lucy Jane, (author.).

Record details

ISBN: 9781643137483
ISBN: 1643137484
ISBN: 9781643137483 : HRD
ISBN: 1643137484 : HRD
ISBN: 9781643137483
ISBN: 1643137484
Physical Description: 280 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
Edition: First Pegasus Books cloth edition.
Publisher: New York : Pegasus Books, 2021.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [265]-270) and index.

Summary, etc.:

"The fascinating, curious, and sometimes macabre history of radium as seen in its uses in everyday life"-- Provided by publisher.

Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the nineteenth century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal. Half Lives tells the fascinating, curious, sometimes macabre story of the element through its ascendance as a desirable item - a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in- the-dark dance costume - to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday twentieth-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element, and enthusiastic customers welcomed their radioactive wares into their homes. Lucy Jane Santos--herself the proud owner of a formidable collection of radium beauty treatments--delves into the stories of these products and details the gradual downfall and discredit of the radium industry through the eyes of the people who bought, sold and eventually came to fear the once-fetishized substance. Half Lives is a new history of radium as part of a unique examination of the interplay between science and popular culture.