Bulletproof Vest

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

"Nothing's bulletproof," the salesman said. "The thing's only bullet resistant."

The New York Times reporter Kenneth R. Rosen had just purchased his first Kevlar vest and was headed off on assignment in Iraq. He was travelling into Mosul when he came to realize that the idea of a bulletproof vest is more effective than the vest itself.

From its very inception, poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide, as it is known, was meant for tires. The strong yet lightweight fiber was the creation of Stephanie Kwolek who, anticipating a gas shortage, focused her attention on producing a tire that could save on gas mileage. Soon it would surpass nylon. Its humble roots and applications are often lost to the colloquialism of the word "Kevlar," now synonymous with weapons shielding and tank armor. But in fact, Kevlar is used as a material in more than 200 applications, including tennis rackets, skis, and parachute lines. What Rosen learned through an intimate use of his bulletproof vest was that it acts as a metaphor for all the precautions we take toward digital, physical, and social security
at their most extreme, bulletproof vests represent a human desire to forge ahead.

Bulletproof Vest is at once an introspective journey into the properties and precisions of Kevlar on a molecular level and on the world stage. It is also an ode to living precariously, an open letter that defends the notion that life is worth the risk.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.