[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-40824-en":3,"doc-seo-40824-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},40824,1374391974468,"Eden","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0",2,"Literature","Synthetic Worlds Nature Art and the Chemical Industry","Synthetic Worlds explores how chemistry reshapes nature, turning coal’s black waste into the luminous colours of modern life. Through close readings that link scientific “ideas of the opposite” with cultural and literary visions, the book traces synthetic colour, abstraction, extraction, and the conversion of refuse into value. Chapters move from early dye-making and synthetic pigment histories to wartime cartels, Nazi aesthetics, and the afterlife of pollution—showing how art, industry, and ecological transformation become entangled.","Synthetic Worlds  \nNature, Art and the Chemical Industry  \nEsther Leslie  \nSynthetic Worlds  \nSynthetic Worlds Nature, Art and the Chemical Industry  \nEsther Leslie  \nrea kt ion bo oks  \nPublished by reaktion books ltd [www.reaktionbooks.co.uk](www.reaktionbooks.co.uk)  \nFirst published 2005  \nCopyright © Esther Leslie 2005  \nAll rights reserved  \nNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.  \nColour printed by Creative Print and Design Group, Harmondsworth, Middlesex  \nPrinted and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Kings Lynn  \nBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Leslie, Esther, 1964–  \nSynthetic worlds: nature, art and the chemical industry  \n1. Art and science 2. Chemical industry-Social aspects  \n3. Nature (Aesthetics)  \nI. Title  \n7-1'.05  \nisbn 1 86189 248 9  \nContents  \nintroduction:  \nGlints, Facets and Essence 7  \none  \nSubstance and Philosophy, Coal and Poetry 25  \ntwo  \nEyelike Blots and Synthetic Colour 48  \nthree  \nShimmer and Shine, Waste and Effort in the Exchange Economy 79  \nfour  \nTwinkle and Extra-terrestriality: A Utopian Interlude 95  \nfive  \nClass Struggle in Colour 118  \nsix  \nNazi Rainbows 167  \nseven  \nAbstraction and Extraction in the Third Reich 193  \neight  \nAfter Germany: Pollutants, Aura and Colours That Glow 218  \nconclusion:  \nNature’s Beautiful Corpse 248  \nReferences 254  \nSelect Bibliography 270  \nAcknowledgements 274  \nIndex 275  \nintroduction  \nGlints, Facets and Essence  \nopposites and origins  \nIn Thomas Pynchon’s novel Gravity’s Rainbow a character remarks on an exploding missile whose approaching noise is heard only afterwards. The horror that the rocket induces is not just terror at its destructive power, but is a result of its reversal of the natural order of things. The world is upended by science. Such reversal is the general work of science as presented in Pynchon’s paranoid vision of wartime, where ‘ideas of the opposite’ animate technological developments.1 ‘Ideas of the opposite’ are as intrinsic to the science tracked in Gravity’s Rainbow as they are to the science of the great chemical firms that were founded on the production of artificial dyes and later became central to the war effort of the Third Reich. Chemical reactions bring opposites together in an exchange of properties to produce new things. More specifically, the synthetic production of all the colours of the rainbow emerges from its opposite, the blackness of coal. This transformation of blackness into colour is part of another antithetical process: chemistry’s efforts to turn waste matter into value. This pursuit aided a wider effort of inversion: the transformation of all nature into its artificial counterpart, as natural materials are remade synthetically in laboratories. All that exists and can exist is natural, but processes of deriving complex compounds from reactions produce substitutes, analogues, imitations and duplicates, which, because of the synthetic operations that bring them into being, seem to remain forever synthetic.  \nIn Gravity’s Rainbow Walter Rathenau, former German foreign minister and ‘prophet and architect of the cartelized state’, speaks from the grave during a séance to the assembled crowd of Nazis and an ig Farben director.2 He speaks of two stuffs \u003C the base materials of the Industrial Revolution \u003C that he perceives as qualitative opposites of each other.  \nConsider coal and steel. There is a place where they meet. The interface between coal and steel is coal-tar. Imagine coal, down in the earth, dead black, no light, the very substance of death. Death ancient, prehistoric  \nspecies we will never see again. Growing older, blacker, deeper, in layers of perpetual night. Above ground, the steel rolls out fiery, bright. But to make steel, the coal-tars, darker and heavier, must be taken from the ","cbCaijgObKgXvndy","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijgObKgXvndy","pdf",3244439,4,1,282,"English","en",105,"# Introduction: Glints, Facets and Essence\n## Substance and Philosophy, Coal and Poetry\n## Eyelike Blots and Synthetic Colour\n## Shimmer and Shine, Waste and Effort in the Exchange Economy\n## Twinkle and Extra-terrestriality: A Utopian Interlude\n## Class Struggle in Colour\n## Nazi Rainbows\n## Abstraction and Extraction in the Third Reich\n## After Germany: Pollutants, Aura and Colours That Glow\n# Conclusion: Nature’s Beautiful Corpse","[{\"question\":\"What central idea does the book use to connect chemistry and cultural meaning?\",\"answer\":\"Chemistry is presented as working through “ideas of the opposite,” transforming opposites into new compounds—so that natural materials are remade synthetically and appear perpetually synthetic.\"},{\"question\":\"How does coal relate to the emergence of synthetic colours in the argument?\",\"answer\":\"The book links rainbow-like colour to its opposite: the blackness of coal. Coal tar extraction becomes the dark waste essence from which luminous substitutes and dyes can be produced.\"},{\"question\":\"What role do wartime and Nazi contexts play in the discussion of synthetic colour?\",\"answer\":\"Chapters address cartelized chemical power and Nazi aesthetic operations, tracing how abstraction, extraction, and synthetic colour are implicated in the political and industrial systems of the Third Reich.\"}]",1783315509,434,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":85,"head_meta":87,"extra_data":89,"updated_unix":28},"synthetic-worlds-nature-art-and-the-chemical-industry","",{"@graph":36,"@context":84},[37,52,67],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/synthetic-worlds-nature-art-and-the-chemical-industry/40824/",{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":53,"author":54,"headline":13,"publisher":56,"fileFormat":59,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":60,"datePublished":61,"encodingFormat":59,"isAccessibleForFree":62,"interactionStatistic":63},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":55},"Person",{"url":41,"name":57,"@type":58},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-11","2026-07-06",true,{"@type":64,"interactionType":65,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":66},"ViewAction",{"@type":68,"mainEntity":69},"FAQPage",[70,76,80],{"name":71,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":73},"What central idea does the book use to connect chemistry and cultural meaning?","Question",{"text":74,"@type":75},"Chemistry is presented as working through “ideas of the opposite,” transforming opposites into new compounds—so that natural materials are remade synthetically and appear perpetually synthetic.","Answer",{"name":77,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":78},"How does coal relate to the emergence of synthetic colours in the argument?",{"text":79,"@type":75},"The book links rainbow-like colour to its opposite: the blackness of coal. Coal tar extraction becomes the dark waste essence from which luminous substitutes and dyes can be produced.",{"name":81,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":82},"What role do wartime and Nazi contexts play in the discussion of synthetic colour?",{"text":83,"@type":75},"Chapters address cartelized chemical power and Nazi aesthetic operations, tracing how abstraction, extraction, and synthetic colour are implicated in the political and industrial systems of the Third Reich.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":86,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":57,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":88,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":25},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":91},[92,96,99,103,108,113,118,123,128,131,135],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},80,"literature",{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":104,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":105,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":109,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]