The industrial gases industry originated in 1886, when a London-based company began producing high-purity oxygen. Initially, purified oxygen was a solution in search of a problem, but demand for it soared early in the twentieth century with the emergence of welding technology. By then, dramatic technological improvements in air separation and purification had emerged, as had most key firms dominating the industry today. Building on air in the decades that followed, the firms expanded their product range and geographical reach to create applications that were essential to every manufacturing process in the modern world, from semiconductor production to oil refining, waste water treatment, and steel-making. This is the first scholarly history of this vital but invisible industry from its origins to the present. Based on unparalleled access to company and public archives, the book explores business and technological development, industrial evolution, and the industry's local roots and int
This book investigates the causes, course and consequences of the shift in West German chemical technology from a coal to a petroleum basis between 1945 and 1961. It examines the historical underpinnings of the technological culture of the German chemical industry; changing political and economic constraints on technological decision-making in the post-war period; and the actual decision-making process within five individual firms. By addressing a wide variety of broader issues - including the origins and impact of the division of Germany; the effects of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle; European integration; and the changing role of the West German Federal Republic in the international political order - this book explains how West German industry regained and then retained a competitive position in world markets.
The advent of consumer societies in the United Kingdom and West Germany after 1945 led to the mass 'production' of garbage. This book compares the social, cultural and economic fallout of the growing volume and changing composition of waste in the two countries from 1945 to the present through sustained attention to changes in the business of handling household waste. Though the UK and Germany are similar in population density, degrees of urbanisation, and standardisation, the two countries took profoundly different paths from low-waste to throwaway societies, and more recently, towards the goal of 'zero-waste'. The authors explore evolving balances between public and private provision in waste services; the transformation of public cleansing into waste management; the role of government legislation and regulation; emerging conceptualisations of recycling and resource recovery; and the gradual shift of the industry's regulatory and business context from local to national and then to in
This book investigates the causes, course and consequences of the shift in West German chemical technology from a coal to a petroleum basis between 1945 and 1961. It examines the historical underpinnings of the technological culture of the German chemical industry; changing political and economic constraints on technological decision-making in the post-war period; and the actual decision-making process within five individual firms. By addressing a wide variety of broader issues - including the origins and impact of the division of Germany; the effects of the Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle; European integration; and the changing role of the West German Federal Republic in the international political order - this book explains how West German industry regained and then retained a competitive position in world markets.
