Silver: Nature and Culture (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781780237565)

From spoons to bullets to sterling coins, silver permeates our everyday culture and language. For millennia we've used it to buy what we need, adorn our bodies, or trumpet our social status, and likewise it's been useful to vanquish werewolves, vampires, and even our own smelly socks. This book captures all of these facets of silver and more, telling the fascinating story of one of our most hardworking precious metals.

As Lindsay Shen shows, while always valued for its beauty and rarity--used to bolster dowries and pay armies alike--silver today is also exploited for its chemistry and can be found in everything from the clothes we wear to the electronics we use to the medical devices that save our lives. Born in the supernovae of stars and buried deep in the earth, it has been mined by many different societies, traded throughout the world, and been the source of wars and the downfall of empires. It is also a metal of pure reflection, a shining symbol of purity. Featuring many glistening illustrations of silver in nature, art, jewelry, film, advertising, and popular culture, this is a superb overview of a metal both precious and useful, one with a rich and eventful history.

Author: Lindsay Shen
ISBN-10: 1780237561
ISBN-13: 9781780237565
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Language: English
Published: 06/15/2017
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.80w x 0.70d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2017