Chilled: How Refrigeration Changed the World and Might Do So Again

Not the most exciting history-of-science book I've read, but still it's interesting reading about one of the underpinnings of modern society: the "cold chain" of refrigerated food and medicine. It's important on such a level that we'd probably have mass famine if it vanished suddenly. Jackson's book talks about the history of the technology, from early experiments with wine-chilling and ventilation to the misadventures of the first men who tried to ship ice internationally and the invention of the modern refrigerator. I would have liked to see more about the modern cold chain itself and how it fits into the global economy, but there's still some interesting reading here. Books like this are at their best when they talk about how the technology affects people's lives, and there's some attention to that and not just to the technology itself.

This is a GREAT book. True, refrigeration did change the world, but in this well-written, informative book, author Tom Jackson takes you all the way to the beginning (and it's Far Longer Ago than you might think) of the effort to keep food from spoiling. The number of people from around the world, some known, some unknown, who got us to this point where we take "getting a cold one" completely for granted. The author does a commendable job of narrating this history, striking for me what is the proper balance between straight journalism and narrative storytelling. You'll never look at your refrigerator the same way again!

This is a well researched book. It can be a tough read for many as it delves deeply into the history, physics and chemistry of refrigeration.

Describes in detail how various forms of "refrigeration" was developed and used over the ages. I was not expecting that. I assumed it to be more of a primer on the history followed on by content of the more recent technology. But found it fascinating, nonetheless.

Very entertaining, the author flows from the beginnings of cooling food and people to many future uses.

Service was great...all the way from England.

Nicely written book with great detail but the book is largely about how refrigeration was invented (in some granular detail) rather than how it changed the world, as the title implies. For those looking for a detailed technical chronology it would be satisfying but the book is different from what you'd expect it to be from the title.

Lots of facts, somewhat loosely and unevenly written, though covers lots of ground, could have used figures to illustrate points. Useful index.

Very enjoyable book good eleven o’clock coffee fodder

I'm delighted to find that many of the insights have given me a greater appreciation of the things that go on around us in our daily lives

This came in good time for my grandson's birthday and he tells me he found it interesting.

Bought fore a friend, not heard any comments yet

Oh dear. I am in no great rush to finish reading this book and I only have one chapter left. Yes there are some nice anecdotes in it but they're spread thinly through a rather academic book, and these all seem to have been included in the Sunday Times review I had already read. At least there is a few good high scoring Scramble words in it. Some photographs would have improved it immensely, the many descriptions of historic experiments and contraptions began to get banal and confusing and the multitude of 'characters' reminded me of a telephone book. Some of the authors humour cheesed me off, it was like a geek sniggering. I had previously read one of the books in the bibliography about North American ice merchants and found it very interesting and entertaining, so was hoping Chilled would be similar.