"In the spirit of A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, an energetic and wide-ranging book of discovery and discoverers, of exploitation and celebration, and of superstition and science, all in search of the ways the chemical elements are woven into our culture, history, and language." --Provided by publisher.

I. Power : -- El Dorado -- Going platinum -- Noble metals, ignobly announced -- The ochreous stain -- The element traders -- Among the Carbonari -- Plutonium charades -- Mendeleev's suitcases -- The liquid mirror -- II. Fire : -- The circumnavigation of the Sulphur -- Pee is for phosphorus -- 'As under a green sea' -- 'Humanitarian nonsense' -- Slow fire -- Our Lady of Radium -- Nightglow of Dystopia -- Cocktails at the Pale Horse -- The light of the sun -- III. Craft : -- To the Cassiterides -- Dull lead's grey truth -- Our perfect reflection -- The worldwide web -- Au zinc -- Banalization -- 'Turn'd to barnacles' -- The Guild of Aerospace Welders -- The March of the Elements -- IV. Beauty : -- Chromatic revolution -- 'Lonely-chrome America' -- Abbé Suger's sheet sapphire -- Inheritance powder -- Rainbows in the blood -- Crushing emeralds -- The crimson light of neon -- Jezebel's eyes -- V. Earth : -- Swedish rock -- Europium Union -- Auerlight -- Gadolin and Samarsky, everymen of the elements -- Ytterby Gruva.