The Story of Chemistry shows how the study of chemistry came into being following early exploitations of chemistry that were purely practical, e.g. smelting, alloys, dyeing, cooking, glazing pottery and paints. Hammurabi produced his catalogue of metals as early as 1700 BC, and just as the exploration of metals was driven by a desire for better weapons, so chemistry advanced in the early historical period for use in distillation, materials, fermentation and medicine. Chemistry became a science after it was divorced from alchemy, when the scientific method was applied by such luminaries as Bacon and Lavoissier. Incorporating the search for elementals and the composition of matter, along with the study of energy and the transformation of matter, this is the story of how human beings took control of the world and used chemistry to modify it.
