10/23/2023
“What are the physical ingredients without which civilization really would grind to a halt, and where do they actually come from?” Conway (The Summit), the economics and data editor at Sky News, sets out to answer that question in this enlightening study. He suggests that copper, iron, lithium, oil, salt, and sand form the bedrock of the modern world, noting that silica, which constitutes “the main ingredient in most sands,” is melted in furnaces to create silicon chips, and that saltpeter’s rich stores of nitrogen make the substance a valuable fertilizer. Reporting on his travels to witness the extraction and processing of the six materials, Conway describes how ore from the Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile is ground to dust and “frothed up in a special liquid solution that helps separate copper from the rest.” The nimble prose transforms chemical and industrial processes into riveting entertainment, and passages tracing how the struggle to access these materials has shaped world history fascinate. For instance, Conway explains that Hitler invaded Ukraine in 1941 to plunder the country’s bountiful iron deposits and that the Saltpeter War between Bolivia and Chile was sparked in 1879 by a dispute over control of lucrative caliche (a salt used in explosives) mines in the Atacama Desert. It’s a sweeping look at the building blocks of the industrialized world. (Nov.)
*Named one of the "Best Books of 2023" by The Economist*
“Rich in revelations . . . [Conway’s] analogies bring the scientific processes to life . . . Offers a fascinating lens on the intricacies of the modern supply chain, the underappreciated science behind everyday objects, and the ways that subtle—and not so subtle—changes in governmental policies shift the role of these materials in the global economy.” —Bronwen Everill, Foreign Policy
"Compelling . . . Material World [makes] strong points . . . These days, Conway reckons, humanity mines, drains, and blasts more stuff out of the ground each year than it did in total during the roughly three hundred millennia between the birth of the species and the start of the Korean War. This comes with immense consequences, both ecological and social, even if we don’t attend to them." —Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker
"A spirited tour of six material things on which our lives depend. . . [Conway] ably describes how commodities interact . . . Lively and impeccably written—a welcome addition to the way-the-world-works literature." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] masterful exploration of the materials that underpin civilization . . . Like Bill Bryson, Conway delights in facts . . . What distinguishes Material World is his access. Although he is very well informed, this is not a remote, academic analysis: he has been to the salt mines beneath the North Sea, the mineral railway of the Atacama Desert, the Chilean town being swallowed by the world's demand for copper, and as a TV journalist he conveys a vivid sense of these places." —Will Dunn, The New Statesman
"Full of colorful characters and fascinating connections, Material World shows how the seemingly simplest materials—from sand to salt to iron—require unbelievably complex refining and processing before arriving at their final form. With absorbing storytelling, Conway shows why we should not take the material world for granted. Fascinating and insightful, this book has changed the way I see the material world." —Chris Miller, author of Chip War
"Deconstructs the modern world for us to see inside . . . As we fret and argue about how to tackle climate change, economic development and geopolitical tensions, this book is a timely reminder of our reliance on physical stuff, and it offers a challenging, practical perspective on these debates." —Paul J. Davies, Bloomberg
"Fascinating . . . Lucidly shows the scale of the environmental problem and the irony of new demand created by efforts to wean ourselves off oil on to batteries." —John Gapper, Financial Times
"Goes straight on the 'must-read' list . . . Conway is one of the most adroit commentators on economics and business of our time." ―City AM
"Lively, rich and exciting . . . Full of surprises." —Peter Frankopan, author of The Earth Transformed
"Fascinating and forensic in equal measure . . . Reveals the web of mining and manufacturing that underpins the lives of everyone on the planet." —Mark Miodownik, author of Stuff Matters
"A highly-engaging and important look at the key materials powering our modern world, and how we feed our insatiable appetite for them." —Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard University and ex-Chief Economist of the IMF
"A compelling narrative of the human story." —Tim Marshall, author of Prisoners of Geography
"Expansive, erudite, and edifying. A stunning insight into the materials that shaped our history and built the modern world." —Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins
"Fascinating, fun, and vitally important. A wonderful exploration of the world we've built yet somehow manage to ignore." —Tim Harford, author of The Data Detective
"Conway's gripping explanation of a world you didn't know needed explaining deserves this highest of accolades: Material World, once read, leaves us baffled that nobody ever thought of writing it before." —Matthew Parris, author of Fracture
"A stunning book that will transform the way you think about economics and life. Brilliantly written." —Matthew Syed, author of Rebel Ideas
"Ed Conway is a great thinker... Material World is an engrossing study of the basic substances on which we all depend. Anyone who cares about the resources which built our world and where mankind is heading must read this vital book." —Adam Boulton, Times Radio
"A masterful exploration of how materials shape our world more than ever – economically, geopolitically and environmentall." —Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge
Author Ed Conway narrates this fascinating survey of six raw materials essential to civilization: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. Conway's narrative point of view is the plural "we," and his narrative reach is global. We visit salt mines and blast furnaces, and gaze far into the cyberfuture, all of it informative, fresh, and enlightening. Conway is an animated narrator, but his voice is unpleasantly pitched, and his unpolished British accent smashes "w's" and "r's," as in "world." And "what" is a clanky "wot." One grows attuned, but some adjustment is required for each listening. Even so, this is a revelatory narrative, and no listener will afterward be able to look at a saltshaker or a stretch of beach the same way. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
★ 2023-08-25
A spirited tour of six material things on which our lives depend.
Sky News economics editor Conway, an inhabitant of the “ethereal world” in which ideas and services are bought and sold, opens his account with an eye-opening visit to a Utah gold mine where an entire mountain range is being removed in the quest for earthly riches. That hugely destructive pit is a comparative scratch in the ground, though, compared to a vast Chilean copper mine that “can produce comfortably more copper each year…as the amount of gold produced by every mine on the planet since the beginning of time.” Gold is somewhat inconsequential, while copper is essential to electronics. So is sand, one of the six commodities Conway examines in rich detail without his prose ever sliding into the miasmas of the dismal science. Sand contains silicon, which yields computer chips and “the fiber optics from which the internet is woven.” Silicon combines with cement and asphalt to make buildings and roads; iron provides the infrastructure of the built material world; salt yields hydrogen chloride, another component of computer chips and even solar panels; and oil is implicated in just about everything, including greenhouse-grown vegetables that feed the world. Even in an energy and material regime weaned from fossil fuels, Conway argues, fossil fuels will play a part—and getting that weaning accomplished, he adds, “will mean building untold new energy capacity across the world: solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear plants, a rate humankind has never before achieved.” Yet, he adds at the conclusion of this erudite exploration, which ably describes how his chosen commodities interact, it’s not an impossibility, thanks to his sixth element: lithium, the basis for the batteries that may lead the way to a renewable energy future. Of course, copper and glass will be involved, too.
Lively and impeccably written—a welcome addition to the way-the-world-works literature.
