The thesis of "The Substance of Civilization," by Stephen L. Sass, is that history is "an alloy of all the materials that we have invented or discovered, manipulated, used, and abused, and each has its tale to tell." Sass, a professor of materials science at Cornell, describes the principal difficulties, and how they were overcome, in the acquisition and manipulation of clay, copper, bronze, gold, silver, iron, glass, alloys, polymers, diamonds, composites, and silicon (coming in a sense full circle). In the chapter on glass, for example, we learn the difference in properties between thin and thick glass, and how the molecular structure of glass creates those properties. Then we see the history of glass, from speculation about the first glass glazes on 4000 B.C. clay pots to a brief discussion of optical fibers.
Sass is about as good at making his subject seem engaging as is the average high school professor. While his few amusing anecdotes are well chosen, they don't mesh well with the actual information, which is delivered like a series of slides. In his historical stories, he affects a clever, cynical style but often can't quite pull it off. Switching between materials science, macroengineering, and politics within a page is often a schizophrenic experience. "Substance" would have been better written as a textbook, and Sass is well equipped to write both the body and the sidebars. But this indexless, freeform structure serves more to conceal the usefulness of the book than to package it. With his intelligence and expertise, Sass was a few good decisions away from a readable book. He made very few of them.

Good historical overview of materials,interspersed with just enough scientific writing to keep the scientifically inclined layman interested. This book is a fascinating account of how civilization discovered and in turn was shaped by the most prosaic of things: The underlying, physical building blocks (I especially loved the discussion of the genesis of steel and its effects). I read it three times and bought two copies to give away as presents