Nicolas Appert invented canned food in Paris in 1810 and is celebrated as the founder of modern food processing and the field of food science, but does he deserve the recognition?  Appert was no scientist and the “cans” he made by a process of trial and error were expensive glass bottles with corks held in place with twisted wire. Reliable, affordable, modern canning depends on the accumulation of small improvements made by the generations of innovators who followed and whose names are largely forgotten. Containing Nature uses the histories of the science and technology of canning to show how the ways we understand and shape the world evolve.