Plastic (from the Greek plassein, meaning to mold or shape a soft substance) was originally invented as a substitute for natural resources; by the end of the twentieth century, however, it had become a material in its own right, no longer simulating organic substances, but instead being used to create entirely new products, everything from tableware to car bodies to artificial hearts. More than any other material, plastic changed life in twentieth-century America even as it came to symbolize a particularly artificial and superficial culture concerned more with appearances than substance, more with imitation than reality. In the popular vernacular, "plastic" took on a pejorative connotation early on, to mean false or fake or disingenuous. Early Hollywood starlets were called "celluloid women"; in 1962, Ken Kesey used the phrase "her fixed plastic smile" in his writing. In an ironic statement on the condition of the culture, a character in...