The Glass Bathyscaphe by Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin, Profile Books, £15, ISBN 1861974000 Reviewed by Julian Henderson
FROM stained-glass windows and light bulbs to test tubes and telescopic lenses, glass is extraordinary stuff. This book does it justice. The Glass Bathyscaphe covers the roles glass has played in the past, and so draws on a huge range of fields: archaeology, the history of technology, science and art, the psychology of perception and philosophy. Then Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin go one better in revealing how all these disciplines interconnect, to intriguing effect. Its transparency and chemical inertness set glass…
