Tales of Militant Chemistry

“A frightening account of film’s supporting role in the development of atomic weaponry.” * Kirkus Reviews *
“Lovejoy deftly weaves a cornucopia of strands and recurring threads in politics, economics, history, biography and technology. The result is a compelling illustration of how fascinating and frightening the world of industrial chemistry can be.” * Science News *
“Sprawling and full of unexpected turns, it’s a rewarding deep dive.” * Publishers Weekly *
“Valuable for the very different light it shines on a part of the Kodak empire that, from the company seat, has always looked like a far-off province.” * Rochester Beacon *
“Lovejoy reveals the film industry’s dual connection to war and its surprising status as an icon of a sinful strategic enterprise, more so than many others in modernity.” * Leonardo *

”Tales of Militant Chemistry tempers the romanticism of film and reveals how inseparable chemical development, warfare, and corporate interests are to
understanding the history of the 20th century, as well as the world we find ourselves in today.”

“This thin but exhaustively researched book explores the processes involved in producing photographic film and their connections to chemistry, including industrial plants; the histories of both world wars and the Cold War; natural resource development; and economics, including tariffs, government funding, monopolies, and the establishment of manufacturing sites. Supported by a substantial bibliography and copious notes, this slim text is a fascinating read, including details not widely known.”

“Humane, well-researched … captivating material history of film. I strongly recommend … to readers interested in the history of cinema and photography, the photographic and chemical industries, and the connections between film and war.”

“Taking the raw materials to manufacture film as the starting point for her thoroughly documented research, Lovejoy unfolds a fascinating perspective on the past century through two of its most defining elements, media and war, and the chemicals, the money, the science, and the people involved in them.”

“Lovejoy’s brilliant book … chronicles the parallel developments of nuclear and chemical weapons and film manufacturing throughout the 20th century. Tales of Militant Chemistry could have been written as a searing expose of the film industry’s controversial history… . But she refrains from sensationalising her findings and instead places the story in a much wider context.”

“Lovejoy has crafted an academic guidebook that refuses to let you stay comfortable… . It is the kind of book that makes you look up mid-page, wanting to talk to someone, anyone, about what you just learned. Shocked and not-shocked, it reorders how you understand the world.”

“This is a story about the transformative power of chemistry and how those who are able to master its subtle magic can change the world. Until I had read this book, it had not occurred to me that the chemistry required to make a roll of photographic film or an atom bomb had more in common than you might imagine.”

“An archivally rich account … the book argues that film factories and geopolitics are not incidental to one another: fused together, they caused the chemical reactions that defined the twentieth century.”

“Elucidates a new perspective on the Twentieth-century photographic industry… . Tales of Militant Chemistry … is manifestly significant to contemporary film studies, a reminder that the medium is part of an industrial– military complex that underlies the historical and ideological social belief systems of the cinematic apparatus.”

Alice Lovejoy is author of the award-winning Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military. A former editor at Film Comment, she is Professor of film and media studies at the University of Minnesota.

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