Tales of Militant Chemistry

"Alice Lovejoy's writing makes you re-see the world film made--connecting the graphic violence of war to the stealthy violence of a chemical-laden world. A fascinating, gripping, globe-spanning guide to a history that now connects us all."--Bathsheba Demuth, author of Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait​

"This highly original and compelling study offers a long hard look at the underside of cinema's modernity, one that has been violent, destructive, dangerous, and cruel. Beautifully written and brilliantly argued, Tales of Militant Chemistry stuns with its rigorous scholarship and reads like a page-turning dystopian novel. It will be discussed for years to come."--Haidee Wasson, author of Everyday Movies: Portable Film Projectors and the Transformation of American Culture

"Tales of Militant Chemistry is an extraordinary contribution to the history of the twentieth century, and to the methodology of cultural history. By focusing on the materials and chemicals that made film possible, Lovejoy provides an original and surprising perspective on the entwined histories of both culture and warfare. This is essential reading for historians of the environment, science, warfare, and culture."--Tara Zahra, author of Against the World: Anti-Globalism and Mass Politics Between the World Wars

"Tales of Militant Chemistry offers a gripping narrative of twentieth-century film stock's chemical entanglement with modern violence--with the atom bomb, trench warfare, industrial accident, racism, and plantation slavery. This is leading-edge scholarship at the intersections of media studies, cultural history and the new materialisms."--Stephanie LeMenager, author of Living Oil: Petroleum Culture in the American Century

"This work of deep nuance and adept analysis describes the subtle process by which medium, carrier, and production are intertwined. Readers will no longer see the film industry simply as a manufacturer of movies, but as a system of interdependent and interconnected manufacturing, financial, and political processes deeply embedded in the international violence of the twentieth century."--Rick Prelinger, cofounder of Prelinger Library and Archives and Emerit Professor of Film & Digital Media, UC Santa Cruz