A History of Greek Fire and Gunpower

In English; 21 illustrations. The volume itself is in Near Fine condition, completely clean and unmarked and with only very slight corner bumping, having been protected by its dust jacket and never having been a library volume. James Riddick Partington (1886 – 1965) was a eminent British chemist and historian of chemistry who published extensively on the history and principles of chemistry. He was president of the British Society for the History of Science from 1949 to 1951, and winner of the Dexter Award and the George Sarton Medal. Partington was a fellow and council member of the Chemical Society of London as well as the first president of the Society for History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry when it was founded in 1937. The society established the Partington Prize in his memory in 1975. This is a first edition of Prof. Partington's groundbreaking work on the history of incendiaries, gunpower and military ordnance from antiquity to Hiroshima, He does not limit himself to the western world, but discusses the Muslim and Oriental world as well. There is very interesting history and discussion of the enigmatic Greek fire, clockwork explosives and the very slow evolution of firearms with the advent of such things as explosive artillery and atomic weapons occuring only very recently.