Lab chemist publishes WWI passion project

Clark Souers, a chemist in the Laboratory’s Energetic Materials Center, has spent his whole life collecting postage stamps. In his youth, he came across stamps from so-called dead countries, which ignited a lifelong interest in the story of what happened to the world after World War I.

Souers has spent many years researching and studying this history and had always intended to write a book on the subject after retirement. But when an injury sidelined him for two months, the time seemed right for him to put it together, and he recently self-published "Chaos and Identity: From World War I to Today."

"I’ve basically put out a history book, only simplified," he said. "It’s only 200 pages so it is an easier read than a textbook, and a lot more fun."

Souers’ book delves into a history where for more than a thousand years, kings and emperors ruled the European peninsula of the greater Asian continent. In 1914, by complete accident, these rulers started a suicidal war that destroyed their way of life and cast hundreds of millions of people into a new world.

"A hundred years ago, World War I was the greatest shock wave ever in the West, taking down four huge, old empires," he said. "All across the Near East, ancient localized religions and language groups found themselves under fire, and it is worse today. Syria and Iraq, glued together by the West after the War, are now breaking into their component parts. The fire that started in 1911 in Libya, and spread to World War I, is hot in 2015."

Souers plans to continue with a second book, looking into Asia after WWII and what came next. For more information on his book, visit Amazon.