Material world

£10.99

Sand, iron, salt, oil, copper and lithium. The struggle for these tiny, magical materials have demolished civilisations and fed our greed and our ingenuity for thousands of years. But the story is not over. We are often told we now live in a weightless world of information but in fact we dug more stuff out of the Earth in 2017 than in all of human history before 1950. And it’s getting worse. To make one bar of gold, we now have to dig 5000 tons of earth. For every tonne of fossil fuels, we extract six tonnes of other materials – from sand to stone to wood to metal. Even as we pare back our consumption of fossil fuels we have redoubled our consumption of everything else. Why? Because these ingredients build everything. They power our computers and phones, build our homes and offices, print our books and packaging.

In stock

Description

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
*An Economist, Financial Times, Times and New Statesman Book of the Year*

Shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year Award and the British Academy Book Prize, Longlisted for the Wainwright Conservation Writing Prize

‘Compelling’ TIM MARSHALL
‘Lively, rich and exciting’ PETER FRANKOPAN
‘Vitally important’ TIM HARFORD

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Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform our future.

They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day. They power our computers and phones, build our homes and offices, and create life-saving medicines. But most of us take these six crucial materials completely for granted.

In Material World, Ed Conway travels the globe to uncover a secret world we rarely see. As we wrestle with climate change, energy crises and the threat of new global conflict, Conway shows why these substances matter more than ever before, and how the hidden battle to control them will shape our geopolitical future.

Additional information

Weight 0.345 kg
Dimensions 19.8 × 12.8 × 3.2 cm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

512

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

338.209 (edition:23)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K