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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 358.3482
EAN num: 9780253346124
ISBN number: 0253346126
Label: Indiana University Press
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 213
Printing Date: August 26, 2005
Publishing house: Indiana University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 1040966
Studio: Indiana University Press
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Brief Book Summary:
In 1919, when the Great War was over, the New York Times reported on a new chemical weapon with 'the fragrance of geranium blossoms,' a poison gas that was 'the climax of this country’s achievements in the lethal arts.' The name of this substance was lewisite and this is its story—the story of an American weapon of mass destruction.
Discovered by accident by a graduate student and priest in a chemistry laboratory at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., lewisite was developed into a weapon by Winford Lewis, who became its namesake, working with a team led by James Conant, later president of Harvard and head of government oversight for the U.S.'s atomic bomb program, the Manhattan Project. After a powerful German counterattack in the spring of 1918, the government began frantic production of lewisite in hopes of delivering 3,000 tons of the stuff to be ready for use in Europe the following year. The end of war came just as the very first shipment was being prepared. It was dumped into the sea, but not forgotten.
Joel A. Vilensky tells the intriguing story of the discovery and development of this weapon and its curious history. During World War II, the United States produced more than 20,000 tons of lewisite, testing it on soldiers and secretly dropping it from airplanes. In the end, the substance was abandoned as a weapon because it was too unstable under most combat conditions. But a weapon once discovered never disappears. It was used by Japan in Manchuria and by Iraq in its war with Iran. The Soviet Union was once a major manufacturer. Strangely enough, although it was developed for lethal purposes, lewisite led to an effective treatment for a rare neurological disease.
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Rated by buyers 
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I found this an interesting book. I felt that the author could have held back some of his personal opinions on the more recent issues at American University but they did not significantly detract from his presentation of a significant research effort.
Rated by buyers 
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Joel Vilensky has written an extremely well researched book on the frantic development of Lewisite during the waning days of World War I. Although Lewisite was never used by the United States in any armed conflict including and after WW I, its legacy as a weapon of mass distruction continues to the present. At the conclusion of WW I, Lewisite was touted by the United States as the most significant weapon of the era. In this respect it is analogous to the Atomic Bomb of WW II. War history buffs, and the general reader, will be intrigued with this fascinating story.
Phil Reiss
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