"This 450-page pastiche of well-researched and well-documented vignettes, anecdotes, thumbnail sketches, and priceless illustrations and drawings is, as advertised, a marvelous excursion into the history of industrial gases. Embedded between the end papers of what might at first seem only to interest a precious few specialists are the essence of stories on hydrogen, including lighter-than-air craft and ballooning; dry ice ... Read moreand refrigeration; acetylene and illumination; gaslight and limelight; noble gases and the quest for absolute zero; industrial helium, superconductivity, and superfluidity; cutting and welding; rocket fuels, buzz bombs, and space travel; cryogenics, cyngas, and LPG. On and on. An impressive scientific and engineering retrospective... References are properly annotated, accurately displayed, and well represented; illustrations are appropriate and often original; the engineering drawings are more than window dressing. Empedocles and Paracelsus would be pleased... Put this in your library. It's a gas! Summing up: Essential." (L.W. Fine, Columbia University in Choice, December 2003) "Almqvist's book is a tour de force, which gives insight, not only into the historical development of the gas production industries, but also in new technologies, such as gas welding and cutting, rocket propulsion, biological and medical applications. In addition the author lets us meet the scientists and entrepreneurs whose worl lies behind all this. A well researched book in the best tradition of the Newcomen Society." (Jan Hault)     Show Less