Cahn R.W. The Coming of Materials Science

Elsevier Science Ltd., 2001. 598 pp.
My objective in writing this book, which has been many years in preparation, has been twofold. The discipline of materials science and engineering emerged from small beginnings during my professional life, and I became closely involved with its development; accordingly, I wanted to place on record the historical stages of that development, as well as premonitory things that happened long ago. My second
objective, inseparable from the first, was to draw an impressionistic map of the present state of the subject, for readers coming new to it as well as for those well ensconced in research on materials. My subject-matter is the science, not the craft that preceded it, which has been well treated in a number of major texts. My book is meant primarily for working scientists and engineers, and also for students with an interest in the origins of their subject; but if some professional historians of science also find the contents to be of interest, I shall be particularly pleased.The Emergence of Disciplines
Precursors of Materials Science
The Virtues of Subsidiarity
The Escape from Handwaving
Characterization
Functional Materials
The Polymer Revolution
Craft Turned into Science
Materials in Extreme States
Materials Chemistry and Biomimetics
Computer Simulation
The Management of Data
The Institutions and Literature of Materials Science
Epilogue