Alfred Nobel: A Biography

Abstract

Few documents have had a more enduring influence on our century than Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, for these handwritten sheets of paper established the most coveted and prestigious awards on earth. Nobel prizes confer more than mere recognition - they represent glory and power, and are the stuff of immortality. Yet the man whose name they bear has been lost to near obscurity. As Kenne Fant shows in this fascinating biography - the only one available in English - Alfred Nobel's life contained fierce and troubling paradoxes. He revolutionized the technology of destruction and invented yet his dreams of a disarmed world inspired him to create the Nobel Peace Prize. Alfred Nobel was determined to rise above the circumstances of poverty and humiliation to which he was born in 1833. His father, a self-taught expert in explosives, went bankrupt; Immanuel Nobel's sons did what they could to salvage the family honor and continue their father's work. Alfred became convinced that if the awesome powers of nitroglycerine - a fascinating and deadly chemical oddity of no known practical value, discovered some years earlier - could be harnessed, the dividends would be limitless. He worked to find a way of detonating the explosive oil safely, so that it could be produced and marketed. The igniter that he received a patent for in 1863 made this feasible. Nitroglycerine began to conquer the world. When in 1866 Alfred invented his safety powder - or dynamite, as he called it - his reputation and his dynasty were already established. One of the most powerful men of his time, Nobel was viewed by some as the model of success and entrepreneurial drive; to his workers, he was anenlightened and scrupulously honest employer in an age of mindless exploitation. Others, however, blamed him for the accidents caused by his inventions (one of which claimed his younger brother) and labeled him the merchant of death. Victor Hugo called him Europe's richest vagabond

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