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Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. These fundamental materials have created empires, razed civilizations, and fed our ingenuity and greed for thousands of years. Without them, our modern world would not exist, and the battle to control them will determine our future.
The fiber-optic cables that weave the World Wide Web, the copper veins of our electric grids, the silicon chips and lithium batteries that power our phones and though it can feel like we now live in a weightless world of information—what Ed Conway calls “the ethereal world”—our twenty-first-century lives are still very much rooted in the material.
In fact, we dug more stuff out of the earth in 2017 than in all of human history before 1950. For every ton of fossil fuels, we extract six tons of other materials, from sand to stone to wood to metal. And in Material World, Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates.
Material World is a celebration of the humans and the human networks, the miraculous processes and the little-known companies, that combine to turn raw materials into things of wonder. This is the story of human civilization from an entirely new the ground up.
The fiber-optic cables that weave the World Wide Web, the copper veins of our electric grids, the silicon chips and lithium batteries that power our phones and though it can feel like we now live in a weightless world of information—what Ed Conway calls “the ethereal world”—our twenty-first-century lives are still very much rooted in the material.
In fact, we dug more stuff out of the earth in 2017 than in all of human history before 1950. For every ton of fossil fuels, we extract six tons of other materials, from sand to stone to wood to metal. And in Material World, Conway embarks on an epic journey across continents, cultures, and epochs to reveal the underpinnings of modern life on Earth—traveling from the sweltering depths of the deepest mine in Europe to spotless silicon chip factories in Taiwan to the eerie green pools where lithium originates.
Material World is a celebration of the humans and the human networks, the miraculous processes and the little-known companies, that combine to turn raw materials into things of wonder. This is the story of human civilization from an entirely new the ground up.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published June 15, 2023
2066 people are currently reading
27338 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 938 reviews
March 30, 2024
Well researched and engaging book about the modern materials that run the world and the geopolitics that controls them
This was an absolutely amazing read and I recommend you read it right away. If the subject matter appears dull to you, just pick this up because this is anything but a dull book. Ed Conway is extremely knowledgeable about material science and the politics and history involved in what he believes are the 6 major materials that are the silent and vital infrastructure of our modern world: sand, salt (sodium chloride), iron, copper, oil and lithium. Conway takes you on a journey through the history of these materials and their incredible and often overlooked importance in the global economy and our very way of modern life.
Glass comes from sand and the modern world could not function without glass products. Glass has been used throughout history and instrumental in many technologies including lenses and pharmaceuticals. During WWI, there was such glass shortages for rifle scopes and binoculars that Britain and Germany actually traded with one another and the Germans supplied their own enemies with sniper telescopes. Even though sand is ubiquitous, it is highly variable. Silica, which comes from sand, is a highly sought after material namely for making the nanoscopic silicon wafers used in semiconductors and microchips in all modern computing technology including smart phones. The US will basically stop at nothing at this point to stop China from obtaining silicon to halt their leading tech edge. Biden showed his hand with sweeping restrictions and chip making material to send to China. Sand is also used in cement which is a material with many concoptions that has silently and greatly revolutionized the world’s infrastructure. Sand is so highly valued that some countries actually have brutal sand mafias that control the supply.
Salt has also been used since ancient times, 1,000 years before Stonehenge as an antimicrobial. Salt has always been highly sought after and controlled by the state as in ancient China and France and the control of salt is often associated with autocratic rule. Controlling and taxing salt has been a historical source of much contention between the state and its people. Modernly, salt is used to keep our water clean and also used everywhere in pharmaceuticals. Copper has been around a long time and its need will only increase as the world tries to transition to battery energy.
Oil is needed for basically everything. Conway goes into the politics of oil and talks at length about the largest oil field in the world in Saudi Arabia and its dominance as a petro-state. The fracking revolution in the US, where oil is extracted from deep rock formations, indeed does theoretically create enough oil to create US dependency but it still relies on complex global chains for refinement and the US is still practically depending on Saudi imports. Hence Biden visiting Saudi Arabia and fist-bumping the Saudi autocrats. The thing is, not only are so many plastic products, foods, fertilizers and other essentials dependent on oil products but we must burn fossil fuels or even create a green infrastructure to gradually move away from fossil fuels. Natural gas will be instrumental in this shift as it creates less carbon.
Lithium is the newest material that has the modern world vying to dominate it. Rechargeable batteries need lithium to run, making it highly sought after. Conway visited the richest deposits in the world in Chile and discusses how most lithium is exported to China which produces 7/10 of all batteries in the world. This whole book is a story not about supply chains but supply webs none of which any single person understands. The geopolitics cannot be untangled to the supply webs and bind together the world that has probably helped police deep water navigation (with the US as the arbiter) and promote global cooperation.
The material world appears stable and we take it for granted but we are just one conflict away from supply chains collapsing where the actual mining location of these materials matters substantially. This was such an amazing read and truly eye opening. I highly recommend you pick it up now.
This was an absolutely amazing read and I recommend you read it right away. If the subject matter appears dull to you, just pick this up because this is anything but a dull book. Ed Conway is extremely knowledgeable about material science and the politics and history involved in what he believes are the 6 major materials that are the silent and vital infrastructure of our modern world: sand, salt (sodium chloride), iron, copper, oil and lithium. Conway takes you on a journey through the history of these materials and their incredible and often overlooked importance in the global economy and our very way of modern life.
Glass comes from sand and the modern world could not function without glass products. Glass has been used throughout history and instrumental in many technologies including lenses and pharmaceuticals. During WWI, there was such glass shortages for rifle scopes and binoculars that Britain and Germany actually traded with one another and the Germans supplied their own enemies with sniper telescopes. Even though sand is ubiquitous, it is highly variable. Silica, which comes from sand, is a highly sought after material namely for making the nanoscopic silicon wafers used in semiconductors and microchips in all modern computing technology including smart phones. The US will basically stop at nothing at this point to stop China from obtaining silicon to halt their leading tech edge. Biden showed his hand with sweeping restrictions and chip making material to send to China. Sand is also used in cement which is a material with many concoptions that has silently and greatly revolutionized the world’s infrastructure. Sand is so highly valued that some countries actually have brutal sand mafias that control the supply.
Salt has also been used since ancient times, 1,000 years before Stonehenge as an antimicrobial. Salt has always been highly sought after and controlled by the state as in ancient China and France and the control of salt is often associated with autocratic rule. Controlling and taxing salt has been a historical source of much contention between the state and its people. Modernly, salt is used to keep our water clean and also used everywhere in pharmaceuticals. Copper has been around a long time and its need will only increase as the world tries to transition to battery energy.
Oil is needed for basically everything. Conway goes into the politics of oil and talks at length about the largest oil field in the world in Saudi Arabia and its dominance as a petro-state. The fracking revolution in the US, where oil is extracted from deep rock formations, indeed does theoretically create enough oil to create US dependency but it still relies on complex global chains for refinement and the US is still practically depending on Saudi imports. Hence Biden visiting Saudi Arabia and fist-bumping the Saudi autocrats. The thing is, not only are so many plastic products, foods, fertilizers and other essentials dependent on oil products but we must burn fossil fuels or even create a green infrastructure to gradually move away from fossil fuels. Natural gas will be instrumental in this shift as it creates less carbon.
Lithium is the newest material that has the modern world vying to dominate it. Rechargeable batteries need lithium to run, making it highly sought after. Conway visited the richest deposits in the world in Chile and discusses how most lithium is exported to China which produces 7/10 of all batteries in the world. This whole book is a story not about supply chains but supply webs none of which any single person understands. The geopolitics cannot be untangled to the supply webs and bind together the world that has probably helped police deep water navigation (with the US as the arbiter) and promote global cooperation.
The material world appears stable and we take it for granted but we are just one conflict away from supply chains collapsing where the actual mining location of these materials matters substantially. This was such an amazing read and truly eye opening. I highly recommend you pick it up now.
September 14, 2023
Probably the best book that I have read this year, talks about the importance of six minerals, how we extract them and how desperately countries are dependent on each other for basic raw materials.
September 20, 2024
”Създадохме икономическа система, която е толкова сложна и съвършена, че ни позволи да забравим за материалите, от които е построена.”
“Това, че не обръщаме особено внимание на Материалния свят, е смисълът. Защо да го правим, когато нещо просто…работи?”
Това е книга за взаимовръзките, трансформациите и взаимозависимостите.
В ерата на смартфоните, интернет и изкуствения интелект недигитализираната част от живота често започва да изглежда все по-нереална и по-смътна. А именно тя е фундаментът, който превръща доволния или най-малкото обезпечен обитател на 21-ви век в такъв. Този фундамент далеч не е мухлясал паметник на полузабравени събития, а царство, където науката достига нива на сложност, които почти я приравняват на магия.
Магията се кове от няколко прости съставки, които са толкова евтини и лесни за намиране, че са на практика невидими:
☑️ Пясък⏳ - без който нямаше да имаме стъкло, оптика и фиброоптични кабели за пренос на данни, както и силициевите полупроводници;
☑️ Сол🧂- без която нямаше да има вековната консервация на храни преди хладилника, както и днешната фармация и санитарен сектор. Солта е буквално във всичко;
☑️ Желязо⚙️- и неговата производна, стоманата, налична във всеки уред, машина, робот;
☑️ Мед💡- без която нямаше да го има приетото за даденост електричество. Нито безобразното унищожение на природата в огромни мащаби;
☑️ Петрол⛽️ - тук няма смисъл да се посочва каквото и да е, достатъчни са двигателят с вътрешно горене и пластмаси с почти извънземни качества;
☑️ Литий📱 - всяка добра батерия го ползва. А бъдещето, изглежда, принадлежи на батериите…
Ед Конуей буквално пътешества из толкова различни и привидно нямащи нищо общо светове, че е зашеметяващо. От доменни пещи като в ада, през фабрика за полупроводници сякаш от ненаписан все още научнофантастичен роман, през солна мина под морето, в която камионите са почти с обем на космическа совалка и пътуват един час до повърхността, до пустини със странни геоложки феномени сякаш от зората на земната история.
Междувременно се редуват войни за ресурси и технологични революции, довели до възход и падение на империи. Пробиви в науката, в които сякаш няма логика и не са очаквани, но носят огромни ползи,…докато след половин или няколко века не станат ясни и вредите, а цикълът със следващия “вълшебен” материал се завърти на нови обороти. Прелитат се огромни и отдалечени граници на различни континенти.
Книгата е епична, увлекателна, детайлно проучена и елегантно поднесена, образователна и предупреждаваща. И най-важното - чете се в ритъма на онова неусетно четене, което може да е само бавно и напоително, защото то самото поглъща огромно читателско гориво, което накрая се трансформира почти по магия в полезен продукт.
4,5⭐️
“Това, че не обръщаме особено внимание на Материалния свят, е смисълът. Защо да го правим, когато нещо просто…работи?”
Това е книга за взаимовръзките, трансформациите и взаимозависимостите.
В ерата на смартфоните, интернет и изкуствения интелект недигитализираната част от живота често започва да изглежда все по-нереална и по-смътна. А именно тя е фундаментът, който превръща доволния или най-малкото обезпечен обитател на 21-ви век в такъв. Този фундамент далеч не е мухлясал паметник на полузабравени събития, а царство, където науката достига нива на сложност, които почти я приравняват на магия.
Магията се кове от няколко прости съставки, които са толкова евтини и лесни за намиране, че са на практика невидими:
☑️ Пясък⏳ - без който нямаше да имаме стъкло, оптика и фиброоптични кабели за пренос на данни, както и силициевите полупроводници;
☑️ Сол🧂- без която нямаше да има вековната консервация на храни преди хладилника, както и днешната фармация и санитарен сектор. Солта е буквално във всичко;
☑️ Желязо⚙️- и неговата производна, стоманата, налична във всеки уред, машина, робот;
☑️ Мед💡- без която нямаше да го има приетото за даденост електричество. Нито безобразното унищожение на природата в огромни мащаби;
☑️ Петрол⛽️ - тук няма смисъл да се посочва каквото и да е, достатъчни са двигателят с вътрешно горене и пластмаси с почти извънземни качества;
☑️ Литий📱 - всяка добра батерия го ползва. А бъдещето, изглежда, принадлежи на батериите…
Ед Конуей буквално пътешества из толкова различни и привидно нямащи нищо общо светове, че е зашеметяващо. От доменни пещи като в ада, през фабрика за полупроводници сякаш от ненаписан все още научнофантастичен роман, през солна мина под морето, в която камионите са почти с обем на космическа совалка и пътуват един час до повърхността, до пустини със странни геоложки феномени сякаш от зората на земната история.
Междувременно се редуват войни за ресурси и технологични революции, довели до възход и падение на империи. Пробиви в науката, в които сякаш няма логика и не са очаквани, но носят огромни ползи,…докато след половин или няколко века не станат ясни и вредите, а цикълът със следващия “вълшебен” материал се завърти на нови обороти. Прелитат се огромни и отдалечени граници на различни континенти.
Книгата е епична, увлекателна, детайлно проучена и елегантно поднесена, образователна и предупреждаваща. И най-важното - чете се в ритъма на онова неусетно четене, което може да е само бавно и напоително, защото то самото поглъща огромно читателско гориво, което накрая се трансформира почти по магия в полезен продукт.
4,5⭐️
December 9, 2023
Ed Conway's Material World is his term for a world most of us no longer inhabit, of which we are not even really conscious, a contrast to our 'ethereal world' of services industries, finance and media:
Perhaps you live there too: it is a rather lovely place, a world of ideas In the ethereal world we sell services and management and administration; we build apps and websites; we transfer money from one column to another; we trade mostly in thoughts and advice, in haircuts and food delivery. If mountains are being torn down on the other side of the planet, it hardly seems especially relevant here in the ethereal world.
When I flew out to Nevada to film that mountain being exploded I was really looking to film a visual metaphor, to turn the physical into something ethereal: a news report that would help people understand an idea like trade flows that bit better. Standing at the edge of the pit there, though, it occurred to me that my perspective had been dangerously shallow. All of a sudden I realised I was staring out from the brink of one world and into another: the Material World.
The Material World is what undergirds our everyday lives. Without this place your beautifully designed smartphone wouldn't switch on, your brand new electric car would have no battery. The Material World will not provide you with a gorgeous home, but it will ensure your home can actually stand up. It will keep you warm, clean, fed and well, however little heed you may pay it.
He tells the story of this world, and the foundations of our modern world, through the story of five key substances (although at times a little more broadly drawn that this migt imply) - sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. This is a world of both astounding scale and micro-complexity, of both world-defining (and world-damaging) processes and yet low-key even secret:
According to one person who has done business with Sibelco, going to their headquarters was 'a bit like getting into Fort Knox,. There are z5-foot-high fences surrounding the complex, ringed with barbed wire, and there are security cameras and frequent security patrols. 'When contractors from other companies are brought in for repairs [at the plant] they are literally blindfolded and marched into the factory up to the machine they need to fix,' says another insider. 'It's like something out of Willy WonIca.'
Why this cloak-and-dagger behaviour? Why the secrecy? According to Reiner Haus, the silicon analyst: 'If you have a monopoly, why would you want to talk to anyone? There's no need to market your product.'
One of Conway's themes, connected to that secrecy, is the fragility of our systems, as well as their global interconnectedness -this quote relevant to the first:
The one in Runcorn provides about 98 per cent of Britain's chlorine, which is then used to purify its tap water. As we stared at the tank where the chlorine is mixed with the caustic soda to create hypochlorite — the compound that goes into bleach and water purification systems—one worker whispered: 'If this place goes down unexpectedly then within seven days this country is rationing drinking water.' Yet few are even aware of the existence of this forgotten node of the Material World. And that suits them here just fine.
And the other of course, is the huge environmental damage, usually in poorer countries, being done in the support of our western living standards. Fascinatingly Conway explains how many of the processes today we regard as damagingly unsustainable were themselves developed as solutions to earlier such situations - which leaves him on balance more of an optimistic believer in human ingenuity than a support of Malthusian/Limits to Growth type ideas.
For a more novelistic account of Cheshire salt mines see the brilliant Never Was.
Conway is economics and data editor at Sky News, who I have admired for some time for his clear illustration on Twitter (I don't watch TV) of complex facts, mined (pun intended) from detailed data, and this carries over to this book, which he is in many respect the ideal person to write:
One of the most wonderful, and for that matter challenging, things about telling the story of the Material World is that this place doesn't fit neatly into any pre-existing scientific or literary categories. This is a story of geology, but it's also about engineering. It's about history and about economics. It covers material science and chemistry, not to mention physics and biology. It is, in short, a bit of everything, which is the best defence I can offer for why I, a mere journalist, am the one attempting to tie these strands together.
As small negatives, the book is entirely lacking Conway's trademark visual graphs and it definitely suffer a little from that trope of TV, as opposed to radio or print, news - just as no political commentator can seemingly discuss British politics without standing outside no 10 with it shown in the background, every chapter has to have Conway's own journey to the places involved.
And as an inhabitant of the financial services sector of the ethereal world, I'd have liked to have seen a chapter on how interconnected the two are - how much of these processes depend on the flow of finance and investments, and on insurance of the risks involved.
But overall, and impressive read - enjoyable and informative, and not a non-fiction book where the executive summary suffices.
Perhaps you live there too: it is a rather lovely place, a world of ideas In the ethereal world we sell services and management and administration; we build apps and websites; we transfer money from one column to another; we trade mostly in thoughts and advice, in haircuts and food delivery. If mountains are being torn down on the other side of the planet, it hardly seems especially relevant here in the ethereal world.
When I flew out to Nevada to film that mountain being exploded I was really looking to film a visual metaphor, to turn the physical into something ethereal: a news report that would help people understand an idea like trade flows that bit better. Standing at the edge of the pit there, though, it occurred to me that my perspective had been dangerously shallow. All of a sudden I realised I was staring out from the brink of one world and into another: the Material World.
The Material World is what undergirds our everyday lives. Without this place your beautifully designed smartphone wouldn't switch on, your brand new electric car would have no battery. The Material World will not provide you with a gorgeous home, but it will ensure your home can actually stand up. It will keep you warm, clean, fed and well, however little heed you may pay it.
He tells the story of this world, and the foundations of our modern world, through the story of five key substances (although at times a little more broadly drawn that this migt imply) - sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. This is a world of both astounding scale and micro-complexity, of both world-defining (and world-damaging) processes and yet low-key even secret:
According to one person who has done business with Sibelco, going to their headquarters was 'a bit like getting into Fort Knox,. There are z5-foot-high fences surrounding the complex, ringed with barbed wire, and there are security cameras and frequent security patrols. 'When contractors from other companies are brought in for repairs [at the plant] they are literally blindfolded and marched into the factory up to the machine they need to fix,' says another insider. 'It's like something out of Willy WonIca.'
Why this cloak-and-dagger behaviour? Why the secrecy? According to Reiner Haus, the silicon analyst: 'If you have a monopoly, why would you want to talk to anyone? There's no need to market your product.'
One of Conway's themes, connected to that secrecy, is the fragility of our systems, as well as their global interconnectedness -this quote relevant to the first:
The one in Runcorn provides about 98 per cent of Britain's chlorine, which is then used to purify its tap water. As we stared at the tank where the chlorine is mixed with the caustic soda to create hypochlorite — the compound that goes into bleach and water purification systems—one worker whispered: 'If this place goes down unexpectedly then within seven days this country is rationing drinking water.' Yet few are even aware of the existence of this forgotten node of the Material World. And that suits them here just fine.
And the other of course, is the huge environmental damage, usually in poorer countries, being done in the support of our western living standards. Fascinatingly Conway explains how many of the processes today we regard as damagingly unsustainable were themselves developed as solutions to earlier such situations - which leaves him on balance more of an optimistic believer in human ingenuity than a support of Malthusian/Limits to Growth type ideas.
For a more novelistic account of Cheshire salt mines see the brilliant Never Was.
Conway is economics and data editor at Sky News, who I have admired for some time for his clear illustration on Twitter (I don't watch TV) of complex facts, mined (pun intended) from detailed data, and this carries over to this book, which he is in many respect the ideal person to write:
One of the most wonderful, and for that matter challenging, things about telling the story of the Material World is that this place doesn't fit neatly into any pre-existing scientific or literary categories. This is a story of geology, but it's also about engineering. It's about history and about economics. It covers material science and chemistry, not to mention physics and biology. It is, in short, a bit of everything, which is the best defence I can offer for why I, a mere journalist, am the one attempting to tie these strands together.
As small negatives, the book is entirely lacking Conway's trademark visual graphs and it definitely suffer a little from that trope of TV, as opposed to radio or print, news - just as no political commentator can seemingly discuss British politics without standing outside no 10 with it shown in the background, every chapter has to have Conway's own journey to the places involved.
And as an inhabitant of the financial services sector of the ethereal world, I'd have liked to have seen a chapter on how interconnected the two are - how much of these processes depend on the flow of finance and investments, and on insurance of the risks involved.
But overall, and impressive read - enjoyable and informative, and not a non-fiction book where the executive summary suffices.
June 27, 2025
This book is packed with information. I learned a lot and can see the world a little more broadly now. I read it from the library and then bought a copy to reread in the future.
I’d love to read an updated version in 2050 when so many companies are targeting a net zero future.
I’d love to read an updated version in 2050 when so many companies are targeting a net zero future.
February 18, 2025
Most of us (myself included) don’t often consider the origin of the materials necessary to make life in the modern world possible. I’m talking about such things as buildings, roads and bridges, smartphones, computers, cars, airplanes, appliances, pharmaceuticals, and all the materials comprising these wonders—concrete, glass, steel, silicon chips, electrical wires, oil and gas, batteries, plastics, and more.
Material World takes us into the origins of the six most crucially important materials in the modern world: Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. I know what you’re thinking—Sand? Salt? Copper? Really? Yes, yes, and yes. Read this book to find out just how important those three are… I was quite surprised myself.
The book details not only where these materials are found, but also the often painstaking processes in obtaining them (and the environmental cost of extraction) as well as the complexity of processing, refining, and making them all into products that can be used in practical ways. I was positively stunned at what it takes to make silicon chips, without which we could not have smartphones, computers, or any other electronics. It’s not a simple process…
One of the crucial takeaways from the book for me is the realization that no one nation on the planet is capable of producing raw materials and refining them all the way to a finished product all on its own. No one, not the U.S., China, Russia, Japan, or any of the rest are capable of going at it alone. We all need each other—there is no getting around this fact. Therefore, modern leaders—if they were wise—would do well in seeking to cooperate with each other economically for the good of their own nations.
This book greatly broadened my awareness. Highly recommended. 5 stars.
Material World takes us into the origins of the six most crucially important materials in the modern world: Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. I know what you’re thinking—Sand? Salt? Copper? Really? Yes, yes, and yes. Read this book to find out just how important those three are… I was quite surprised myself.
The book details not only where these materials are found, but also the often painstaking processes in obtaining them (and the environmental cost of extraction) as well as the complexity of processing, refining, and making them all into products that can be used in practical ways. I was positively stunned at what it takes to make silicon chips, without which we could not have smartphones, computers, or any other electronics. It’s not a simple process…
One of the crucial takeaways from the book for me is the realization that no one nation on the planet is capable of producing raw materials and refining them all the way to a finished product all on its own. No one, not the U.S., China, Russia, Japan, or any of the rest are capable of going at it alone. We all need each other—there is no getting around this fact. Therefore, modern leaders—if they were wise—would do well in seeking to cooperate with each other economically for the good of their own nations.
This book greatly broadened my awareness. Highly recommended. 5 stars.
April 12, 2024
This is an extremely important book on the materials we can’t do without. They aren’t ones most of us think daily about, but they are essential.
Sand - for cement, buildings and roads. Sand is also used for making glass. Sand is not just sand.
Iron - for a ton of things: building, cars, vessels, rockets
Copper - for the green transition and electricity.
Salt - a necessary ingredient
Oil - for transportation, food production, clothes, and various materials
Lithium - for the batteries in our gadgets and cars, also essential for the next energy transition
The problem with these materials is that extracting them is extremely damaging to the environment. Hard decisions will have to be made, such as deep sea mining. Or using too much water or blowing up sacred sites.
We do not live in a service economy. We live in a world where we exploit natural resources and this will not change. I wanted to start the book again when I was done.
Sand - for cement, buildings and roads. Sand is also used for making glass. Sand is not just sand.
Iron - for a ton of things: building, cars, vessels, rockets
Copper - for the green transition and electricity.
Salt - a necessary ingredient
Oil - for transportation, food production, clothes, and various materials
Lithium - for the batteries in our gadgets and cars, also essential for the next energy transition
The problem with these materials is that extracting them is extremely damaging to the environment. Hard decisions will have to be made, such as deep sea mining. Or using too much water or blowing up sacred sites.
We do not live in a service economy. We live in a world where we exploit natural resources and this will not change. I wanted to start the book again when I was done.
May 4, 2025
(2.3)Like the book Stuff Matters, this recitation of sand, salt, steel, iron, oil, lithium etc and its importance is engagingly related…which of course is important when a subject can so easily bog down in technical discourse.
Conway grabs a substance like sand and talks some history with a possible revealing, interesting anecdote and we get glass, concrete, and semi conductors.
Sometimes he visits these natural shrines where the giant machines rip the compounds from the ground and sometimes he makes sojourns to ancient factories where scientists made crucial breakthroughs a century ago.
In almost every way he’s no Panglossian administer of all things environmental or all things technological…
He relates that without oil we couldn’t feed half the world amongst many nods to the absolute essentially quality of this substance, but oh the global warming…the global warming…did I mention the global warming?
He never examines that premise. Instead we’re treated to long discussions on net zero. His remedies ignore the impossibility of getting autocratic China to stop building coal fired plants or to get environmentalists to agree that nuclear power is carbon neutral.
The whole book is how insanely clever humans are…and he’s right, but somehow he can’t grasp that an increase of a few degrees shouldn’t be avoided but adapted too…since the costs of trying to stop the temperature increase are prohibitive for the world.
Conway grabs a substance like sand and talks some history with a possible revealing, interesting anecdote and we get glass, concrete, and semi conductors.
Sometimes he visits these natural shrines where the giant machines rip the compounds from the ground and sometimes he makes sojourns to ancient factories where scientists made crucial breakthroughs a century ago.
In almost every way he’s no Panglossian administer of all things environmental or all things technological…
He relates that without oil we couldn’t feed half the world amongst many nods to the absolute essentially quality of this substance, but oh the global warming…the global warming…did I mention the global warming?
He never examines that premise. Instead we’re treated to long discussions on net zero. His remedies ignore the impossibility of getting autocratic China to stop building coal fired plants or to get environmentalists to agree that nuclear power is carbon neutral.
The whole book is how insanely clever humans are…and he’s right, but somehow he can’t grasp that an increase of a few degrees shouldn’t be avoided but adapted too…since the costs of trying to stop the temperature increase are prohibitive for the world.
July 17, 2023
An enjoyable, informative, and, for those of us who live primarily in the ‘ethereal’ world, possibly an important book. It spells out just how totally (and increasingly) dependent we are on all the stuff we dig or suck out of the ground. The writer shares his wonder at the human ingenuity involved in the extraction and processing of minerals, and his concerns about the associated environmental costs. Lots of history, lots of industrial detail and lots of food for thought.
He concentrates on six materials: sand (i.e. glass, silicon, concrete etc), salt, iron, oil, copper and lithium. Fascinating stuff, and we are told that if we ever have any hope of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, our need for copper and lithium, especially lithium, will go up and up for a good while. Batteries will be crucial and that means lithium. Nothing comes close.
Everything has an environmental price tag, for example, he tells us just how much concrete, steel, fibreglass, copper and fossil fuels go into constructing wind turbines, especially those off-shore.
He also tells us about the global interdependence related to extraction, processing, reprocessing and manufacturing from all this stuff, and the fragility and interconnectedness of supply lines. This is a good companion piece to the more geo-political books by Tim Marshall.
Sobering it may be, but this is not a pessimistic book, and he points to the hope contained in the fact that the future of mineral extraction will primarily be for making things, not for burning. But neither does he gloss over the social, ecological, economic and political challenges that confront us now and lie ahead. We live on a finite planet so untrammelled mineral exploitation is not an option. He also posits that to get to a renewable energy powered world, and to minimise the climate crisis, this generation, and the next, will need to exercise restraint which isn’t something we are normally very good at.
Recommended.
He concentrates on six materials: sand (i.e. glass, silicon, concrete etc), salt, iron, oil, copper and lithium. Fascinating stuff, and we are told that if we ever have any hope of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, our need for copper and lithium, especially lithium, will go up and up for a good while. Batteries will be crucial and that means lithium. Nothing comes close.
Everything has an environmental price tag, for example, he tells us just how much concrete, steel, fibreglass, copper and fossil fuels go into constructing wind turbines, especially those off-shore.
He also tells us about the global interdependence related to extraction, processing, reprocessing and manufacturing from all this stuff, and the fragility and interconnectedness of supply lines. This is a good companion piece to the more geo-political books by Tim Marshall.
Sobering it may be, but this is not a pessimistic book, and he points to the hope contained in the fact that the future of mineral extraction will primarily be for making things, not for burning. But neither does he gloss over the social, ecological, economic and political challenges that confront us now and lie ahead. We live on a finite planet so untrammelled mineral exploitation is not an option. He also posits that to get to a renewable energy powered world, and to minimise the climate crisis, this generation, and the next, will need to exercise restraint which isn’t something we are normally very good at.
Recommended.
October 9, 2023
Material World offers a good overview of the topic of modern commodities, their interlinkedness, and critical aspects of their processes. While nowhere near as comprehensive as it could have been, the writing is still easy to read and understand, though there a few questions on last-mile accuracy. The big issue is that not only is the writing itself a bit surface level, the exploration itself can end up being so as well. The deep dives into particular examples offer tantalising glimpses of important areas that could have been explored further to round the book out, but the choice of 6 commodities makes it a bit fast paced for the subject. A very useful entry into the specifics commodities and gives an excellent guide into pointed questions for further exploration.
March 3, 2024
świetne kompendium wiedzy o sześciu surowcach, bez których nie wyobrażamy sobie już życia. napisane bardzo przystępnym językiem, z mnóstwem przykładów (również polskich!) i opisów działania – zrozumiałych nawet dla osób nieznających się za bardzo na chemii i fizyce. bardzo podobał mi się aspekt historyczny, dzięki któremu mogłam zrozumieć jeszcze więcej. bardzo przydatne zakończenie, będące nie tylko podsumowaniem, ale i wizją przyszłości bez lub z tymi surowcami. mój poziom wiedzy na ten temat znacząco wzrósł. szczeliny nigdy nie zawodzą!
August 31, 2025
Ținând cont de răspândirea nisipului, probabil că nu este surprinzător că i-am găsit atât de multe întrebuințări. Excavăm, extragem și aruncăm în aer mai mult nisip decât orice alt material. Atăt de mult încât ecosisteme întregi au de suferit.
Principalul element prezent în majoritatea nisipurilor este dioxidul de siliciu. Și din moment ce sticla este "nisip topit", siliciul este principalul ingredient al sticlei. Primii meșteșugari care au descoperit cum se produce sticlă cu adevărat limpede, subțire și frumoasă au fost cei din insula Murano. Aceștia erau amenințați cu moartea dacă încercau să părăsească insula.
Și să nu uităm că industria semiconductorilor se bazează pe siliciu, tehnologie de vărf pe care SUA o protejează cu îndârjire.
Nisipul este cea mai străveche și totodată cea mai modernă substanță dintre toate.
Dacă importanța cipurilor în timpurile moderne este ușor de înțeles, nu același lucru se poate spune despre sare. Folosită înainte de invenția frigiderului pentru conservarea cărnii, precum și ca monedă de schimb și mijloc de plată (salariu vine de la sare), sarea pare în prezent banală. Puțini își dau seama că sarea stă la baza industriei chimice și farmaceutice actuale.
Prin procesul de electroliză clor-alcalin saramura pompată din subteran este descompusă în clor gazos, hidrogen gazos și hidroxid de sodiu (sodă caustică). Soda caustică este utilizată în producerea săpunului și a detergenților, dar și în fabricarea celulozei și a aluminiului. Clorul gazos este ingredientul esențial în producția de policlorură de vinil (PVC), un plastic pe care omenirea l-a produs în exces în ultimul secol. Unii susțin că a fost o modalitate la îndemână de a absorbi excesul de clor produs în procesul clor-alcalin. De asemenea, clorul reprezintă baza chimică pentru o gamă întreagă de medicamente - inclusiv sedative precum Librium, anxiolitice precum Valium (Diazepam), antibiotice precum vancomicina (folosit în tratamentul infecțiilor cu Staphylococcus aureaus) și medicamente anti-malarie precum clorochina.
Recomand
Principalul element prezent în majoritatea nisipurilor este dioxidul de siliciu. Și din moment ce sticla este "nisip topit", siliciul este principalul ingredient al sticlei. Primii meșteșugari care au descoperit cum se produce sticlă cu adevărat limpede, subțire și frumoasă au fost cei din insula Murano. Aceștia erau amenințați cu moartea dacă încercau să părăsească insula.
Și să nu uităm că industria semiconductorilor se bazează pe siliciu, tehnologie de vărf pe care SUA o protejează cu îndârjire.
Nisipul este cea mai străveche și totodată cea mai modernă substanță dintre toate.
Dacă importanța cipurilor în timpurile moderne este ușor de înțeles, nu același lucru se poate spune despre sare. Folosită înainte de invenția frigiderului pentru conservarea cărnii, precum și ca monedă de schimb și mijloc de plată (salariu vine de la sare), sarea pare în prezent banală. Puțini își dau seama că sarea stă la baza industriei chimice și farmaceutice actuale.
Prin procesul de electroliză clor-alcalin saramura pompată din subteran este descompusă în clor gazos, hidrogen gazos și hidroxid de sodiu (sodă caustică). Soda caustică este utilizată în producerea săpunului și a detergenților, dar și în fabricarea celulozei și a aluminiului. Clorul gazos este ingredientul esențial în producția de policlorură de vinil (PVC), un plastic pe care omenirea l-a produs în exces în ultimul secol. Unii susțin că a fost o modalitate la îndemână de a absorbi excesul de clor produs în procesul clor-alcalin. De asemenea, clorul reprezintă baza chimică pentru o gamă întreagă de medicamente - inclusiv sedative precum Librium, anxiolitice precum Valium (Diazepam), antibiotice precum vancomicina (folosit în tratamentul infecțiilor cu Staphylococcus aureaus) și medicamente anti-malarie precum clorochina.
Recomand
February 9, 2024
The book sounded promising. But the author meanders all over the place, loves the sound of his own voice, and takes forever to say anything meaningful. Pretentious twaddle. I'm setting this aside for now.
The book opens with the author visiting a big, low-grade Nevada gold mine. My old livelihood, and I've also visited that mine. He feels vaguely guilty that his gold wedding band required mining so much rock, treated with cyanide: after all, who really needs gold? Cyanide = POISON! He riffs off on a tangent on mercury pollution. Sacred land for the Indians. And on and on and on. Good grief.
Closing out as DNF. I skimmed ahead on other interesting topics. Hopeless. Not for me! 2 stars is likely over-generous.
The book opens with the author visiting a big, low-grade Nevada gold mine. My old livelihood, and I've also visited that mine. He feels vaguely guilty that his gold wedding band required mining so much rock, treated with cyanide: after all, who really needs gold? Cyanide = POISON! He riffs off on a tangent on mercury pollution. Sacred land for the Indians. And on and on and on. Good grief.
Closing out as DNF. I skimmed ahead on other interesting topics. Hopeless. Not for me! 2 stars is likely over-generous.
May 15, 2025
I strongly recommend this book to everyone who consumes and/ or votes. It really changed the way I view the world and our global connections. While Conway does describe many chemical and technological processes along with sharing human interest and historical information, Material World is popular science in its highest accessible form. I think he deserves to be on lots of prize lists.
Obviously most of what we buy as end-point consumers doesn’t consist of pure sand, salt, oil, iron, lithium, or copper. But I don’t think many of us realize how much of those substances are 1) mined every year, or 2) processed in multiple steps to create the myriad intermediate materials that actually go into what we buy or are dependent on. The answer to (1): billions of tons annually mined in places all over the world. They are all over the world because these substances, in exactly the chemical compositions that are needed for the expansive variety of inputs they get processed into, only occur in specific places. Those specific places may mean literally only there, or may mean that they only occur there in the level of concentration that makes mining it financially feasible. For example, you need specific types of sand to create different types of concrete, glass, and silicon.
The answer to (2): The next step for these original materials is smelting or grinding or refining. For that you need other specific products that are part of chemical reactions (again found only in specific places), and you need energy. A lot of energy. You may need specific types of material to serve as containers for these chemical reactions (found in specific locations). You need massive processing plants that aren’t quick or financially feasible to build just anywhere. You need a place to put all of the waste, like slag, that is the residue of turning ore into pure metal. Like thousands of football fields full of piles of slag every year. You need skilled workers. Shipping facilities. Security.
Conway is excellent at explaining every step of this process. I was fascinated by every page. He provides just the right amount of geography, general history and technical history as he visits locations vital to each material’s progress from underground deposit to altered ingredient in a variety of finished products. Salt mines, salt ponds, beaches, underground sand and salt mines, copper and iron mines, lakes with lithium-rich waters or residue. Refineries, smelting sites, steelworks, massive electrolysis process factories that turn salt into chlorine and ingredients for pharmaceuticals, furnaces and clean rooms needed to turn sand into silicon. Recyled steel and copper. Conway hits the sweet spot of describing the basics of the science of smelting or otherwise processing each material into its constituent parts without diving too deep (for this reader at least). For me the most eye-opening aspect of the book is describing the in-between stages of managing so many different constituent chemical subtypes that are used or produced in processing. This explains why you have to start in a particular mine somewhere in England or Congo or Australia or Chile if you want to produce what’s needed for a particular end product.
So the idea of becoming self-sufficient in our world is laughable. Every bit of electronic equipment, every medical device, every drug, every vehicle, every food crop, … depends on processes that stretch around the world. With multiple stages of production and shipping.
The essential thing is to become aware of these interconnections so that we can interpret the geopolitical actions that go on daily in boardrooms and capitals. We may think that our votes often drive what happens in the world, but after you read this book you will see that much of what happens depends on where these and other materials are found, where they are processed, and who controls the intellectual capital needed to turn them into fertilizers, silicon, simple computer chips, the highest tech computer chips, the finest, purest copper, cement, and so on. For example, while we can move away from gasoline automobiles toward greener transportation, there are not a lot of substitutes for the use of oil and gas products in heating the greenhouses growing much of our food, oro in pharmaceuticals, polyethylene, and in processing all of the materials described in this book.
I read this in hard copy; I think listening would be a challenge. Conway is a really terrific writer, but reading helps to keep the processes clear. I borrowed it from the library but am going to buy my own copy because it was too much to absorb in one go. I think I will be referring back to this as I follow world events.
Obviously most of what we buy as end-point consumers doesn’t consist of pure sand, salt, oil, iron, lithium, or copper. But I don’t think many of us realize how much of those substances are 1) mined every year, or 2) processed in multiple steps to create the myriad intermediate materials that actually go into what we buy or are dependent on. The answer to (1): billions of tons annually mined in places all over the world. They are all over the world because these substances, in exactly the chemical compositions that are needed for the expansive variety of inputs they get processed into, only occur in specific places. Those specific places may mean literally only there, or may mean that they only occur there in the level of concentration that makes mining it financially feasible. For example, you need specific types of sand to create different types of concrete, glass, and silicon.
The answer to (2): The next step for these original materials is smelting or grinding or refining. For that you need other specific products that are part of chemical reactions (again found only in specific places), and you need energy. A lot of energy. You may need specific types of material to serve as containers for these chemical reactions (found in specific locations). You need massive processing plants that aren’t quick or financially feasible to build just anywhere. You need a place to put all of the waste, like slag, that is the residue of turning ore into pure metal. Like thousands of football fields full of piles of slag every year. You need skilled workers. Shipping facilities. Security.
Conway is excellent at explaining every step of this process. I was fascinated by every page. He provides just the right amount of geography, general history and technical history as he visits locations vital to each material’s progress from underground deposit to altered ingredient in a variety of finished products. Salt mines, salt ponds, beaches, underground sand and salt mines, copper and iron mines, lakes with lithium-rich waters or residue. Refineries, smelting sites, steelworks, massive electrolysis process factories that turn salt into chlorine and ingredients for pharmaceuticals, furnaces and clean rooms needed to turn sand into silicon. Recyled steel and copper. Conway hits the sweet spot of describing the basics of the science of smelting or otherwise processing each material into its constituent parts without diving too deep (for this reader at least). For me the most eye-opening aspect of the book is describing the in-between stages of managing so many different constituent chemical subtypes that are used or produced in processing. This explains why you have to start in a particular mine somewhere in England or Congo or Australia or Chile if you want to produce what’s needed for a particular end product.
So the idea of becoming self-sufficient in our world is laughable. Every bit of electronic equipment, every medical device, every drug, every vehicle, every food crop, … depends on processes that stretch around the world. With multiple stages of production and shipping.
The essential thing is to become aware of these interconnections so that we can interpret the geopolitical actions that go on daily in boardrooms and capitals. We may think that our votes often drive what happens in the world, but after you read this book you will see that much of what happens depends on where these and other materials are found, where they are processed, and who controls the intellectual capital needed to turn them into fertilizers, silicon, simple computer chips, the highest tech computer chips, the finest, purest copper, cement, and so on. For example, while we can move away from gasoline automobiles toward greener transportation, there are not a lot of substitutes for the use of oil and gas products in heating the greenhouses growing much of our food, oro in pharmaceuticals, polyethylene, and in processing all of the materials described in this book.
I read this in hard copy; I think listening would be a challenge. Conway is a really terrific writer, but reading helps to keep the processes clear. I borrowed it from the library but am going to buy my own copy because it was too much to absorb in one go. I think I will be referring back to this as I follow world events.
September 20, 2024
Материалният свят – истинският свят, който не виждаме: https://knigolandia.info/materialniya...
На пръв поглед това е простичка книга, която се фокусира върху добива, обработката и използването на само шест ключови суровини – пясък, сол, желязо, мед, петрол и литий. Но от тях е съградена огромна част от нашата цивилизация, а както пише авторът, в голяма си част ние „нямаме представа как се правят нещата, които използваме всеки ден“. Той прави интересно разделение между ефирния свят, този на услугите, и материалния, истинския свят, който рядко виждаме и за който дори не се сещаме. И казва прямо: „В ефирния свят ние продаваме услуги, управление и администрация; създаваме приложения и сайтове; прехвърляме числа от една колона в друга; занимаваме се предимно с мислене и съветване, с фризьорство и доставка на храна. Ако от другата страна на планетата прокопават цели планини, това като ли няма особено значение тук, в ефирния свят.“ Но значение има и тази книга всъщност разказва защо, като показва огромния невидим свят, който се крие във всички устройства, които използваме, във всички сгради, които обитаваме, в храната на масата ни, в контакта за електричество и в рутера… хлябът наш насъщний на дигиталните джънкита. Безброй интересни неща могат да се научат от тази книга – да започнем с нещо простичко: „чиповете започват живота си не като песъчинки, а като камъни с големината на юмрук“. Защо? Ще научите от книгата.
Издателска къща БАРД
https://knigolandia.info/materialniya...
На пръв поглед това е простичка книга, която се фокусира върху добива, обработката и използването на само шест ключови суровини – пясък, сол, желязо, мед, петрол и литий. Но от тях е съградена огромна част от нашата цивилизация, а както пише авторът, в голяма си част ние „нямаме представа как се правят нещата, които използваме всеки ден“. Той прави интересно разделение между ефирния свят, този на услугите, и материалния, истинския свят, който рядко виждаме и за който дори не се сещаме. И казва прямо: „В ефирния свят ние продаваме услуги, управление и администрация; създаваме приложения и сайтове; прехвърляме числа от една колона в друга; занимаваме се предимно с мислене и съветване, с фризьорство и доставка на храна. Ако от другата страна на планетата прокопават цели планини, това като ли няма особено значение тук, в ефирния свят.“ Но значение има и тази книга всъщност разказва защо, като показва огромния невидим свят, който се крие във всички устройства, които използваме, във всички сгради, които обитаваме, в храната на масата ни, в контакта за електричество и в рутера… хлябът наш насъщний на дигиталните джънкита. Безброй интересни неща могат да се научат от тази книга – да започнем с нещо простичко: „чиповете започват живота си не като песъчинки, а като камъни с големината на юмрук“. Защо? Ще научите от книгата.
Издателска къща БАРД
https://knigolandia.info/materialniya...
August 16, 2023
Fascinating, lively, vitally important and, furthermore, hopeful. Everyone should read it - especially politicians and environmental campaigners. And Ed Conway should be knighted for writing it.
April 25, 2024
We live in an age of information and data, and it’s easy to lose sight of the physical underpinnings of our world. Cloud storage may seem ethereal, but the servers that house it and the electric grid connecting them still very much require down-to-earth materials.
Indeed, ‘down to earth’ aptly describes the starting point of Ed Conway’s new book, “Material World”. While visiting a gold mine in the Nevada desert, the author found himself staring into a giant hole in the ground – so gigantic indeed that it had entirely swallowed the sacred Mount Tenabo revered by the indigenous people. Which made him realize how little we know about where our everyday materials come from and what measures we must take to wrest them from the earth.
“Material World” is divided into six parts, each dedicated to one key substance shaping our world: sand (or silicon), salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. This choice may strike you as somewhat arbitrary. But a general pattern soon emerges as Conway methodically recounts the history of each of the materials, its mining and production, and its societal and environmental impact.
The sobering message is so pervasive that it wouldn’t really matter if the book focused on three or ten substances instead: Our reliance on these materials remains almost absolute. There are often few ways to extract them efficiently, let alone without massively destroying our environment – and finding substitutes is a daunting task. Technological improvements have often come to the rescue (which is why ‘peak oil’ remains elusive), but these in turn lead to increased demand via a rebound effect. To make matters worse, our global supply chains are surprisingly vulnerable, as exposed by recent wars and the pandemic.
Another recurring theme is that, historically, the solution to one problem sooner or later turned out to be a major problem in its own right. Cars were once lauded for remedying the noise and pollution caused by horses. Oil used to save whales from the brink of extinction. Ironically, as we transition toward ‘clean’ electric vehicles and renewable energy, we find ourselves more reliant on materials such as lithium and copper (and... well, oil).
Along the way, we learn about a myriad of curious tidbits. Sand, or its constituent silicon, has been a key driver of scientific progress, from early lenses to today’s transistors (which are smaller than viruses). Salt has been produced and traded since the Stone Age and was once tantamount to a currency; thus the word sal-ary. Today’s greenhouse fruits, like tomatoes, are essentially based on fossil fuels. And our modern-day abundance of cheap plastics is largely owed to their crucial role in WWII. The list goes on.
As fascinating as some of these factbites may be, the path through the book’s 500 pages is paved with many tediously repetitive details and often trails off on yet another tangent. While many of the reports on excursions to mining and production sites are well written, all six parts follow the same layout and invoke the same take-home messages, which becomes a tad monotonous after six iterations. Compared to Mark Miodownik’s engaging “Stuff Matters” or Bill Bryson’s witty prose, this work feels somewhat dry and uninspired. It doesn’t help that Conway focuses solely on economic and production aspects: Scientific explanations on how the materials’ properties come about are few and far between, and those are often jargon heavy and not particularly illuminating. The book is also completely devoid of any graphical illustrations.
So “Material World” may not be a page turner. Nonetheless, it offers a detailed and thought-provoking look into the history and potential future of the substances our world relies on – and will continue to rely on. Our future rests not just in the cloud but also, as it were, in the ground beneath our feet.
(3.5/5)
Indeed, ‘down to earth’ aptly describes the starting point of Ed Conway’s new book, “Material World”. While visiting a gold mine in the Nevada desert, the author found himself staring into a giant hole in the ground – so gigantic indeed that it had entirely swallowed the sacred Mount Tenabo revered by the indigenous people. Which made him realize how little we know about where our everyday materials come from and what measures we must take to wrest them from the earth.
“Material World” is divided into six parts, each dedicated to one key substance shaping our world: sand (or silicon), salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. This choice may strike you as somewhat arbitrary. But a general pattern soon emerges as Conway methodically recounts the history of each of the materials, its mining and production, and its societal and environmental impact.
The sobering message is so pervasive that it wouldn’t really matter if the book focused on three or ten substances instead: Our reliance on these materials remains almost absolute. There are often few ways to extract them efficiently, let alone without massively destroying our environment – and finding substitutes is a daunting task. Technological improvements have often come to the rescue (which is why ‘peak oil’ remains elusive), but these in turn lead to increased demand via a rebound effect. To make matters worse, our global supply chains are surprisingly vulnerable, as exposed by recent wars and the pandemic.
Another recurring theme is that, historically, the solution to one problem sooner or later turned out to be a major problem in its own right. Cars were once lauded for remedying the noise and pollution caused by horses. Oil used to save whales from the brink of extinction. Ironically, as we transition toward ‘clean’ electric vehicles and renewable energy, we find ourselves more reliant on materials such as lithium and copper (and... well, oil).
Along the way, we learn about a myriad of curious tidbits. Sand, or its constituent silicon, has been a key driver of scientific progress, from early lenses to today’s transistors (which are smaller than viruses). Salt has been produced and traded since the Stone Age and was once tantamount to a currency; thus the word sal-ary. Today’s greenhouse fruits, like tomatoes, are essentially based on fossil fuels. And our modern-day abundance of cheap plastics is largely owed to their crucial role in WWII. The list goes on.
As fascinating as some of these factbites may be, the path through the book’s 500 pages is paved with many tediously repetitive details and often trails off on yet another tangent. While many of the reports on excursions to mining and production sites are well written, all six parts follow the same layout and invoke the same take-home messages, which becomes a tad monotonous after six iterations. Compared to Mark Miodownik’s engaging “Stuff Matters” or Bill Bryson’s witty prose, this work feels somewhat dry and uninspired. It doesn’t help that Conway focuses solely on economic and production aspects: Scientific explanations on how the materials’ properties come about are few and far between, and those are often jargon heavy and not particularly illuminating. The book is also completely devoid of any graphical illustrations.
So “Material World” may not be a page turner. Nonetheless, it offers a detailed and thought-provoking look into the history and potential future of the substances our world relies on – and will continue to rely on. Our future rests not just in the cloud but also, as it were, in the ground beneath our feet.
(3.5/5)
February 7, 2024
A fascinating, cross-disciplinary look at how six raw earth materials (sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium) have been mined, refined, extracted, utilized, and exploited over the course of human history. Conway traveled extensively while researching this book, and he incorporates historical research alongside modern research on the deleterious environmental and socioeconomic impacts of many current extraction and mining practices.
Further reading:
The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough
The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean (for more discussion about deep sea mining)
Further reading:
The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization
Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough
The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean (for more discussion about deep sea mining)
May 12, 2024
Pierwszy rozdział tej książki, o piasku, wgniótł mnie niemal w fotel. Tyle faktów, dla mnie wcześniej nieznanych, rozsadziło mi mózg niemalże.
Potem już chyba lekko się uodporniłam na ilość faktów, ale ta książka na każdej stronie zadziwia.
Uświadomiła mi jak bardzo skomplikowany jest nasz świat, jak wiele zależy od podstawowych surowców, a jak niewiele osób wie jak je pozyskać i przetworzyć.
Autor kończy książkę ważną uwagą, że przejście na bardziej zrównoważoną gospodarkę i energię będzie wymagało krótkoterminowego wzrostu wydobycia paliw kopalnych i nieodnawialnych surowców. Ale powinno w długim okresie pomoc Ziemi.
Po raz pierwszy od czasów studenckich zakreślałam w książce ciekawostki, a było ich całe mnóstwo. Bardzo się cieszę, że kupiłam tę książkę i będę mogła do niej wracać.
Bardzo wam polecam, pokazuje szalenie ciekawe miejsca na ziemi!
Potem już chyba lekko się uodporniłam na ilość faktów, ale ta książka na każdej stronie zadziwia.
Uświadomiła mi jak bardzo skomplikowany jest nasz świat, jak wiele zależy od podstawowych surowców, a jak niewiele osób wie jak je pozyskać i przetworzyć.
Autor kończy książkę ważną uwagą, że przejście na bardziej zrównoważoną gospodarkę i energię będzie wymagało krótkoterminowego wzrostu wydobycia paliw kopalnych i nieodnawialnych surowców. Ale powinno w długim okresie pomoc Ziemi.
Po raz pierwszy od czasów studenckich zakreślałam w książce ciekawostki, a było ich całe mnóstwo. Bardzo się cieszę, że kupiłam tę książkę i będę mogła do niej wracać.
Bardzo wam polecam, pokazuje szalenie ciekawe miejsca na ziemi!
June 6, 2024
Absolutely amazing book. It takes some storytelling genius to make the history of six minerals, most of which e.g. sand are superficially unexciting, into a riveting and entertaining narrative.
Essential reading, both as a study of the past and a possible signpost to the future.
As the author's day job is Economics Editor of Sky News his audio narration does veer occasionally into newsreader bombast mode, but it's a very minor criticism given what he's achieved with this.
Essential reading, both as a study of the past and a possible signpost to the future.
As the author's day job is Economics Editor of Sky News his audio narration does veer occasionally into newsreader bombast mode, but it's a very minor criticism given what he's achieved with this.
March 25, 2024
Otwiera oczy.
July 31, 2024
‘Material World: the Six Raw Materials that Shape Modern Civilization’ by Ed Conway is a must read! I ask, no demand! that GR readers add this book to their TBR lists! While a case can be made it is a book of infodumps, Conway’s writing makes the science and history about the science of making things extremely interesting, not dull. There is a lot of non-fiction information to digest in this book, but it is important. The high-tech products which are required for work by farmers, manufacturers, construction workers, white- and blue-collar workers, and which are necessary in most homes, would not exist but for the scientific discoveries of how useful the six materials of sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium turned out to be. These six materials are basic building blocks of almost every single item that is representative of civilization, behind every step of technological progress all of us are familiar with, in almost every product we all casually use without thought every day.
Unfortunately, every one of these basic materials in being transformed into cement, iron, steel, transistors, plastics, gasoline, pharmaceutical drugs, jewelry, cell phones, pencils, computers, electricity, fibre optic cables, glass, silicon chips, toilet paper, electric cars, batteries, trains, airplanes, trucks, headphones, televisions, sound bars, fertilizers, wood preservation, space stations, wind turbines, solar panels, wires, sewer pipes, test tubes, microscopes, MRI machines, scalpels, packaging, every kitchen utensil, pots and pans and kitchen sinks, etc etc etc etc etc etc, on and on, pumps CO2 into the atmosphere when manufactured using these six basic materials which are pulled out of the Earth and transformed by heat, chemicals and mixing and matching with other materials.
The author visits many of the manufacturers using these six materials in producing the products necessary to all of our lives, and he writes of how they are making the products, some of which I mentioned above. One of the discoveries the author made is these manufacturers are very secretive, and they refused the author permission to go into certain parts of their businesses. Even when he got permission to walk around these factories, it took him months, and years in some cases, to get permission to see how they were making stuff. They are companies completely unknown to the public, these companies who are actually behind the making of many components in Apple devices, for example, and they want to keep it that way.
Where are these six basic materials in everything we use today, basically speaking, to be found? How are they extracted out of rocks, mud and pockets in certain layers of the earth beneath our feet? The author visited the sites that are doing this work, and writes of the science behind the work.
The book was written by Conway because he asked himself the question:
”…what are the materials we really depend on? What are the physical ingredients without which civilization really would grind to a halt, and where do they actually come from?”
One of the main points Conway emphasizes in chapter after chapter is how interconnected the world is because of the necessity of acquiring the materials and of manufacturing what we use every day in our homes or carry in our pockets. All of the research and information he writes down in the book is thoroughly backed up by facts and figures, as well as by personal visits.
From the book:
”Look at the smartphone’s packaging. It says it was designed in California and assembled in China, but this is a vast oversimplification, for this miniature computer is a tapestry of technology that comes from all over the world. The display, the glass covering it, the battery, the cameras, the accelerometer, the modem and transceivers, the storage and power management chips; each comes from a different factory before they are assembled in China and then shipped to you.
Much of this activity does not happen in China or California. Indeed, it’s worth noting at this stage that pretty much all the physical components in the phone are not made by Apple itself, which is not really a manufacturer at all, but a brilliant re-packager of the technology made by other people. Even the chips that bear Apple’s name—the A16 Bionic was the latest iPhone chip at the time of writing—are in fact manufactured by another company altogether, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or, as it’s better known, TSMC. That company in turn was only able to make the chip with the help of machines made by another, even more obscure company, ASML. And at the heart of ASML’s machines are critical components made by other companies, some of which will be familiar (the lenses are made by Zeiss, with glass from Schott) and some less so (the lasers are made by another German company, Trumpf.)
All of that covers only a fraction of the journey—the final steps our silicon atom takes before it is admitted into your smartphone. But our journey must begin not at the assembly plant or the silicon foundry where those tiny transistors are etched on to a silicon wafer, but with the very moment the silicon contained in that computer chip was first removed from the ground. It begins not in a manufacturing plant so sterile that there is barely a mite of dust to be found, but amid dirt, smoke and fire.”
“You hear the trucks and the clank of rocks long before you enter the premises [Serrabal Mine, Spain]. But once inside you realise what that blinding white expanse really is: an enormous rock quarry. Serrabal is a quartz mine. The vein of rock that lifts the Pico Sacro and its adjoining hillocks heavenwards is one of the purest quartz deposits to be found anywhere in the world, a rock so white that it is sought after far and wide.
The quartz pulled out of the ground here is sometimes used to make kitchen work surfaces. It is ground down into gravel for ornamental gardens and pure white sand for golf bunkers. But the real reason we have come here is for the bigger lumps of quartz that come from this hillside. These white, dusty chunks of stone are the raw materials that will eventually—months or more likely years down the line— become the next generation of silicon chips…”
“The company that owns the mine is Ferroglobe, a Spanish business which is the world’s biggest silicon metal producer outside of China….”
“The rocks from Serrabal are emptied on to the floor outside the warehouses, a pile of white stone on the grey concrete. After a while they are mixed with coking coal, (a baked form of coal) and woodchips and tipped into a furnace, heated up above 1,800C. What happens in that furnace, where an electrical current is run into the mixture of quartz and coal, remains something of a mystery.
“”Even after more than a hundred years of production, there are still things people don’t understand about what’s happening in this reaction,”” says Håvard Moe, one of the directors of Elkem, a Norwegian company, which is another one of Europe’s biggest silicon producers…”
This quote from the book is only a tiny sample of the interesting things I learned. I know this is an overworked word, but omg this book is AWESOME! And horrifying, when it becomes obvious we cannot stop manufacturing many of these products which in the making of are destroying the environment at the same time, too. The author has a chapter on the energy possibilities of wind power and solar power, but clearly the energy produced by renewable sources is not enough to power the manufacturing machines and the atomic cracking of basic chemicals, gases, rocks and materials necessary for stuff like concrete, steel, etc., stuff without which we would be living like people in the Middle Ages and earlier epochs without electricity, motors, medical equipment to see inside of our bodies without cutting, preserved foods, refrigerators, microwave ovens… and especially smart phones!
I had no idea of the chains of manufacturing the author reveals. One common product might be the result of mines/factories/chemicals from thirty to fifty countries! No country is a manufacturing island, which is one of the biggest takeaways from this book! Remember how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine completely disrupted the supply of natural gas and oil to Europe, stopping the heating of homes as well as the closing down of many many companies that were manufacturing materials necessary to common products in every modern home? The invasion also caused a grain shortage in Africa, leading to riots in some African cities because of rising prices of food. Did you notice the economic disruptions, and economic crashes and vital shipping/transportation stoppages, and the permanent closing of many businesses, to many economies around the world when Covid restrictions stopped everyone from working outside the home? Did you notice the slowness of things coming back to normal (arguably, because things did not exactly come back to normal in many instances even now, as we are still dealing with inflation and shortages of materials two years after). Many companies relied on selling built-up stored products which had been gathering dust in warehouses, while looking for new sources of the necessary hundreds of components to make new replacement products because the shutdown broke a lot of the previous manufacturing chains, which in turn has led to price increases.
The book has extensive sections of Notes, Bibliography and Index. I suspect the reader will want a physical copy, as I do, and will be reading it again and again. I also recommend watching videos about some of the manufacturing companies and machine/mining processes mentioned in the book on Youtube! Absolutely mind-boggling.
Unfortunately, every one of these basic materials in being transformed into cement, iron, steel, transistors, plastics, gasoline, pharmaceutical drugs, jewelry, cell phones, pencils, computers, electricity, fibre optic cables, glass, silicon chips, toilet paper, electric cars, batteries, trains, airplanes, trucks, headphones, televisions, sound bars, fertilizers, wood preservation, space stations, wind turbines, solar panels, wires, sewer pipes, test tubes, microscopes, MRI machines, scalpels, packaging, every kitchen utensil, pots and pans and kitchen sinks, etc etc etc etc etc etc, on and on, pumps CO2 into the atmosphere when manufactured using these six basic materials which are pulled out of the Earth and transformed by heat, chemicals and mixing and matching with other materials.
The author visits many of the manufacturers using these six materials in producing the products necessary to all of our lives, and he writes of how they are making the products, some of which I mentioned above. One of the discoveries the author made is these manufacturers are very secretive, and they refused the author permission to go into certain parts of their businesses. Even when he got permission to walk around these factories, it took him months, and years in some cases, to get permission to see how they were making stuff. They are companies completely unknown to the public, these companies who are actually behind the making of many components in Apple devices, for example, and they want to keep it that way.
Where are these six basic materials in everything we use today, basically speaking, to be found? How are they extracted out of rocks, mud and pockets in certain layers of the earth beneath our feet? The author visited the sites that are doing this work, and writes of the science behind the work.
The book was written by Conway because he asked himself the question:
”…what are the materials we really depend on? What are the physical ingredients without which civilization really would grind to a halt, and where do they actually come from?”
One of the main points Conway emphasizes in chapter after chapter is how interconnected the world is because of the necessity of acquiring the materials and of manufacturing what we use every day in our homes or carry in our pockets. All of the research and information he writes down in the book is thoroughly backed up by facts and figures, as well as by personal visits.
From the book:
”Look at the smartphone’s packaging. It says it was designed in California and assembled in China, but this is a vast oversimplification, for this miniature computer is a tapestry of technology that comes from all over the world. The display, the glass covering it, the battery, the cameras, the accelerometer, the modem and transceivers, the storage and power management chips; each comes from a different factory before they are assembled in China and then shipped to you.
Much of this activity does not happen in China or California. Indeed, it’s worth noting at this stage that pretty much all the physical components in the phone are not made by Apple itself, which is not really a manufacturer at all, but a brilliant re-packager of the technology made by other people. Even the chips that bear Apple’s name—the A16 Bionic was the latest iPhone chip at the time of writing—are in fact manufactured by another company altogether, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or, as it’s better known, TSMC. That company in turn was only able to make the chip with the help of machines made by another, even more obscure company, ASML. And at the heart of ASML’s machines are critical components made by other companies, some of which will be familiar (the lenses are made by Zeiss, with glass from Schott) and some less so (the lasers are made by another German company, Trumpf.)
All of that covers only a fraction of the journey—the final steps our silicon atom takes before it is admitted into your smartphone. But our journey must begin not at the assembly plant or the silicon foundry where those tiny transistors are etched on to a silicon wafer, but with the very moment the silicon contained in that computer chip was first removed from the ground. It begins not in a manufacturing plant so sterile that there is barely a mite of dust to be found, but amid dirt, smoke and fire.”
“You hear the trucks and the clank of rocks long before you enter the premises [Serrabal Mine, Spain]. But once inside you realise what that blinding white expanse really is: an enormous rock quarry. Serrabal is a quartz mine. The vein of rock that lifts the Pico Sacro and its adjoining hillocks heavenwards is one of the purest quartz deposits to be found anywhere in the world, a rock so white that it is sought after far and wide.
The quartz pulled out of the ground here is sometimes used to make kitchen work surfaces. It is ground down into gravel for ornamental gardens and pure white sand for golf bunkers. But the real reason we have come here is for the bigger lumps of quartz that come from this hillside. These white, dusty chunks of stone are the raw materials that will eventually—months or more likely years down the line— become the next generation of silicon chips…”
“The company that owns the mine is Ferroglobe, a Spanish business which is the world’s biggest silicon metal producer outside of China….”
“The rocks from Serrabal are emptied on to the floor outside the warehouses, a pile of white stone on the grey concrete. After a while they are mixed with coking coal, (a baked form of coal) and woodchips and tipped into a furnace, heated up above 1,800C. What happens in that furnace, where an electrical current is run into the mixture of quartz and coal, remains something of a mystery.
“”Even after more than a hundred years of production, there are still things people don’t understand about what’s happening in this reaction,”” says Håvard Moe, one of the directors of Elkem, a Norwegian company, which is another one of Europe’s biggest silicon producers…”
This quote from the book is only a tiny sample of the interesting things I learned. I know this is an overworked word, but omg this book is AWESOME! And horrifying, when it becomes obvious we cannot stop manufacturing many of these products which in the making of are destroying the environment at the same time, too. The author has a chapter on the energy possibilities of wind power and solar power, but clearly the energy produced by renewable sources is not enough to power the manufacturing machines and the atomic cracking of basic chemicals, gases, rocks and materials necessary for stuff like concrete, steel, etc., stuff without which we would be living like people in the Middle Ages and earlier epochs without electricity, motors, medical equipment to see inside of our bodies without cutting, preserved foods, refrigerators, microwave ovens… and especially smart phones!
I had no idea of the chains of manufacturing the author reveals. One common product might be the result of mines/factories/chemicals from thirty to fifty countries! No country is a manufacturing island, which is one of the biggest takeaways from this book! Remember how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine completely disrupted the supply of natural gas and oil to Europe, stopping the heating of homes as well as the closing down of many many companies that were manufacturing materials necessary to common products in every modern home? The invasion also caused a grain shortage in Africa, leading to riots in some African cities because of rising prices of food. Did you notice the economic disruptions, and economic crashes and vital shipping/transportation stoppages, and the permanent closing of many businesses, to many economies around the world when Covid restrictions stopped everyone from working outside the home? Did you notice the slowness of things coming back to normal (arguably, because things did not exactly come back to normal in many instances even now, as we are still dealing with inflation and shortages of materials two years after). Many companies relied on selling built-up stored products which had been gathering dust in warehouses, while looking for new sources of the necessary hundreds of components to make new replacement products because the shutdown broke a lot of the previous manufacturing chains, which in turn has led to price increases.
The book has extensive sections of Notes, Bibliography and Index. I suspect the reader will want a physical copy, as I do, and will be reading it again and again. I also recommend watching videos about some of the manufacturing companies and machine/mining processes mentioned in the book on Youtube! Absolutely mind-boggling.
December 30, 2024
[30 December 2024]
This is an excellent book. The fact that it took me five months to read is due entirely to my failing, not the book. There were a few other things going on -- like a presidential election and the holiday season -- and it is a long book.
I would have expected a book about materials mining would have been boring, but it really wasn't. Mr. Conway has a fairly relaxed writing style but is able to convey not just the importance of the six raw materials that are fundamental to modern life, but also the intricacies of their production, the history of their development, and the uncertain future that depends on them. Salt, sand, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. All but the last, maybe the last two, we take totally for granted, but our world would not function without them. And Conway is able to make them interesting to the lay person. He takes us to the mines and the refineries and the factories and brings them alive. And he does not ignore the problems that some of these materials pose.
I strongly recommend this book.
This is an excellent book. The fact that it took me five months to read is due entirely to my failing, not the book. There were a few other things going on -- like a presidential election and the holiday season -- and it is a long book.
I would have expected a book about materials mining would have been boring, but it really wasn't. Mr. Conway has a fairly relaxed writing style but is able to convey not just the importance of the six raw materials that are fundamental to modern life, but also the intricacies of their production, the history of their development, and the uncertain future that depends on them. Salt, sand, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. All but the last, maybe the last two, we take totally for granted, but our world would not function without them. And Conway is able to make them interesting to the lay person. He takes us to the mines and the refineries and the factories and brings them alive. And he does not ignore the problems that some of these materials pose.
I strongly recommend this book.
December 21, 2024
Thanks to division of labor, today we don’t know much about how anything in our life is made of, even though we knew where we bought them (Amazon) and where they were made (prob. China, or at least before decoupling). This book is full of little stories to make you appreciate the important roles basic materials like sand played in our life, and how global supply chain has become.
Here is a little story that I found funny about dependency on materials. By 1914, Britain was reliant on Germany, or rather Zeiss, for some 60 per cent of all its precision glass. Upon the declaration of war, those German supplies were cut off immediately. British Army's Field Marshal Lord Roberts, issued an "almost despairing appeal" for the general public to donate any binoculars. In 1915, a secret agent was dispatched to neutral Switzerland hoping to procure binoculars from the very country Britain was fighting. Through Swiss channels, Germany replied. I don’t know about you, but “Nein” would have been my guess. (Indeed, I would have sent 9 pairs of binoculars just make a pun.) But no, Germany would send 32,000 binoculars *immediately*, and 15,000 a month in future. This was not from some pan-European commercial cooperation, this was from the German *War Office*. To sweeten the deal, they would also send 500 telescopic rifle sights (and 5,000 - 10,000 a month in the future). If you think they lost their marbles, you are close. They lost their rubber (supply).
Here is a little story that I found funny about dependency on materials. By 1914, Britain was reliant on Germany, or rather Zeiss, for some 60 per cent of all its precision glass. Upon the declaration of war, those German supplies were cut off immediately. British Army's Field Marshal Lord Roberts, issued an "almost despairing appeal" for the general public to donate any binoculars. In 1915, a secret agent was dispatched to neutral Switzerland hoping to procure binoculars from the very country Britain was fighting. Through Swiss channels, Germany replied. I don’t know about you, but “Nein” would have been my guess. (Indeed, I would have sent 9 pairs of binoculars just make a pun.) But no, Germany would send 32,000 binoculars *immediately*, and 15,000 a month in future. This was not from some pan-European commercial cooperation, this was from the German *War Office*. To sweeten the deal, they would also send 500 telescopic rifle sights (and 5,000 - 10,000 a month in the future). If you think they lost their marbles, you are close. They lost their rubber (supply).
September 9, 2024
Although it’s often too long and somewhat disappointing compared to Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, I would still recommend reading it because it has many interesting points.
April 16, 2024
Mózg ugotowany 🔥
August 25, 2023
A must-read - something I don't say lightly - to understand the modern world. Perhaps best summed up as "Capitalism, eh? Mental."
This is a properly fascinating balance of macro and micro scale revelations about the more practical, physical side of how the world works - and what that means for everything and everyone on the planet.
Huge amounts here were totally new to me, and much of it shocking - from the sheer complexity of production processes and supply chains, to the fragility of our current ways of living. Having read Chip Wars earlier in the year I thought the section on silicon wouldn't contain much new, but even that was rammed with things I wasn't aware of. The other chapters made me feel utterly ignorant about the material world and how everyday objects are made (and disposed of), as well as get even more daunted at the sheer scale of the challenge facing the world as we seek to undo the consumerist chaos of our modern way of life.
But despite all the existential angst, there's still some hope here. The emphasis on human ingenuity, innovation and discovery that constantly sits alongside stories of exploitation, destruction and callousness means it's possible to come away from this book optimistic.
This is a properly fascinating balance of macro and micro scale revelations about the more practical, physical side of how the world works - and what that means for everything and everyone on the planet.
Huge amounts here were totally new to me, and much of it shocking - from the sheer complexity of production processes and supply chains, to the fragility of our current ways of living. Having read Chip Wars earlier in the year I thought the section on silicon wouldn't contain much new, but even that was rammed with things I wasn't aware of. The other chapters made me feel utterly ignorant about the material world and how everyday objects are made (and disposed of), as well as get even more daunted at the sheer scale of the challenge facing the world as we seek to undo the consumerist chaos of our modern way of life.
But despite all the existential angst, there's still some hope here. The emphasis on human ingenuity, innovation and discovery that constantly sits alongside stories of exploitation, destruction and callousness means it's possible to come away from this book optimistic.
November 21, 2025
Material World parece un libro anodino. Uno de esos oscuros, pesados y solitarios libros esperando en alguna biblioteca especializada, que ocasionalmente puede ser consultado por algún científico despistado. Además, el título comienza en inglés. Buf, vaya chapa.
Pero no.
Ha sido una de las lecturas de divulgación más interesantes del año. Tal y como promete el título, la obra consiste en la descripción, exploración, industria y comercio de los 6 materiales más importantes para la Humanidad. Arena, sal, acero, cobre, petróleo y litio.
No es un libro de química básica ni se entretiene en dar descripciones aburridas sobre las propiedades de los materiales. Más bien, el autor narra qué se encontró en los diferentes viajes que realizó por el mundo persiguiendo las minas y lugares de extracción de estos materiales, y lo enlaza con la historia que hubo detrás de su descubrimiento, de su industrialización, de cómo nos afecta a nuestra vida, de qué personajes o empresas hubo detrás de ellos... Me ha recordado bastante al recomendable libro El mundo está en venta: La cara oculta del negocio de las materias primas, donde habla más del dominio de diferentes empresas y países de los materiales, desde un punto de vista más político y financiero.
Todo esto, contado de un modo muy ameno y entretenido para los que disfrutamos de un buen libro de divulgación, en un momento donde la "crisis" de las materias primas está más en el candelero que nunca en los medios.
Maravilloso. 6 estrellas.
Pero no.
Ha sido una de las lecturas de divulgación más interesantes del año. Tal y como promete el título, la obra consiste en la descripción, exploración, industria y comercio de los 6 materiales más importantes para la Humanidad. Arena, sal, acero, cobre, petróleo y litio.
Para un lingote de oro estándar (400 onzas troy) tendrían que excavar unas 5.000 toneladas de tierra. Casi lo mismo que diez superjumbos Airbus A380, los aviones de pasajeros más grandes del mundo... para un lingote de oro.
No es un libro de química básica ni se entretiene en dar descripciones aburridas sobre las propiedades de los materiales. Más bien, el autor narra qué se encontró en los diferentes viajes que realizó por el mundo persiguiendo las minas y lugares de extracción de estos materiales, y lo enlaza con la historia que hubo detrás de su descubrimiento, de su industrialización, de cómo nos afecta a nuestra vida, de qué personajes o empresas hubo detrás de ellos... Me ha recordado bastante al recomendable libro El mundo está en venta: La cara oculta del negocio de las materias primas, donde habla más del dominio de diferentes empresas y países de los materiales, desde un punto de vista más político y financiero.
Cuando analizan el desarrollo de la humanidad, los economistas tienden a mirar con lupa. ¿Por qué se produjo la Revolución industrial en un determinado momento y lugar, es decir, en la Europa de los siglos XVIII y XIX? [...] las lentes de cristal nos permitieron mirar al espacio y ayudaron a los primeros astrónomos, como Galileo, a descubrir que la Tierra orbitaba alrededor del Sol. Ayudaron a aumentar el poder económico de los países al permitir que la gente trabajara más; hasta la invención de las lentes, quienes perdían la vista tenían que jubilarse anticipadamente, pero gracias a las lentes biconvexas de las gafas, millones de personas pudieron prolongar su vida laboral.
Todo esto, contado de un modo muy ameno y entretenido para los que disfrutamos de un buen libro de divulgación, en un momento donde la "crisis" de las materias primas está más en el candelero que nunca en los medios.
El material más infravalorado de todos es uno de los materiales más mágicos del mundo y, sin embargo, en su mayor parte no está a la vista. Cuando asoma la cabeza por encima del suelo, a menudo se burlan de él y lo desprecian. El crítico francés de arquitectura y diseño Georges Gromort habló en nombre de gran parte del mundo cuando dijo: «Le béton? Mais c’est de la boue!» («¿El hormigón? ¡Pero si es barro!»)
Maravilloso. 6 estrellas.
April 19, 2025
In Peppa Pig, they make fun of Daddy Pig for reading a book about cement.
June 2, 2025
Excellent book! Very interesting and thought provoking. Come and talk to me about it please.
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