Once again, Sam Kean doesn't disappoint. He brilliantly pulls in stories from history about both abstract and well known figures to weave an entertaining and informative book. I'm not sure what I expected this book to be about and after finishing it, I'm still not sure how I would summarize it. It ranges laughing gas to dynamite to hurricanes but although possibly not coherent in a list I never found myself bored in any individual topic so I guess it doesn't much matter.