White Light: The Essential Element that Changed the World

by Jack Lohmann

The most important element you never think about – uncover the secret life of phosphorus

Phosphorus is the keystone of life. Without it, cells cannot divide and plants cannot photosynthesise. Highly reactive, it is seldom found in its elemental form – but, when pure white phosphorus is exposed to air, it emits a ghostly white light.

In 1842, Darwin’s beloved botany professor, Reverend John Stevens Henslow, discovered the miraculous potential of phosphorus as a fertilizer. He hardly imagined that his countrymen would soon be grinding the bones of dead soldiers and mummified Egyptian cats to fertilise farms. Nor that his discovery would spawn a global mining industry, changing diets, lifestyle and the face of the planet forever.

Journeying across the flat expanses of Henslow’s Suffolk to far-flung Nauru, an island stripped of its life force by this ravenous young industry, Lohmann sifts through the Earth’s geological layers and eras, exploring our strained relationship with a life-giving element. Bold, lyrical, genre-defying, White Light invites us to renew our broken relationship not just with the earth but with our own death – and the life it brings after us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History, Nature, Biology, Audiobook

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 18, 2025

Reviews

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book tells the story of phosphorus and how humans have changed the once natural phosphorus cycle. Why write a book about a rather scarce element? And why would I be motivated to read it? Perhaps, this excerpt from the book’s Prologue can provided some insight.

Of all the elements of the periodic table, phosphorus is one of six that are absolutely necessary for the existence of life.

(i.e. found in every strand of DNA in every living organism.)

Of those six, phosphorus is the most limited. Because of its rarity, it controls life—it determines who grows and shrinks, who lives and dies, what areas become biologically wealthy and which ones will be biologically poor. "The maximum mass of protoplasm which the land can support, like the maximum that the sea can support, is dictated by the phosphorus content," Isaac Asimov, the bio-chemist, wrote in 1959. Phosphorus, he wrote, "is life's bottleneck.

It’s a bottleneck that controls that amount of food that can be produced, thus it also controls how many living things—including humans—can survive on earth. At one time nitrogen was also a limiting element in some locations, but that is no longer the case since the 1913 development of the Haber-Bosch process for extracting nitrogen from the air.

Thus phosphorous remains as the sole bottleneck, and only a finite supply of phosphorus exists on earth. Since it is present in all living organisms one natural source of phosphorus is recycled organic waste and materials. Other than that the only other supplemental artificial source of phosphorus that can be used as a fertilizer in growing plants is from the mining of phosphate rock which—like all mined minerals—is a finite source which will not last forever.

Phosphate rock (a.k.a phosphorite) has an origin similar to petroleum products in that it was created in geological eras of the past from accumulations of the remains of living organisms. Much of this book is devoted to reporting about numerous past environmental contaminations and disasters caused by the mining of phosphate rock. One of the reasons phosphate mining is ecologically dangerous is that the ore is mildly radioactive and must be dissolved in sulfuric acid in order to convert phosphorite into superphosphate.

Much of the book's narrative is devoted to the history of mining in Florida and Nauru. Morocco which has over 70% of the world's estimated reserves is also covered by the book. Some of the Moroccan mining is from Western Sahara which is disputed territory occupied by Morocco. Such a large portion of the world's reserves located in Morocco places unusual economic power in the hands of the Moroccan government (i.e. king of Morocco).

Currently approximately one percent of the world's supply of phosphate is mined each year. Demand can be expected to increase in the future, and perhaps new discoveries will be added to the known reserves. But inevitably as the easiest to mine areas are exhausted the cost of phosphate fertilizer will increase in the future. This increase in cost will perhaps make the recycling of human and animal waste more economically feasible.

Currently a significant portion of the mined phosphate ends up in the earth's oceans due to agricultural runoff and discharges to rivers. Ironically humans are expending considerable energy and money moving phosphates from terrestrial locations to new deposits on the bottom of the sea. I guess this is one of the signs of the beginning of the Anthropocene.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a real shortage of popular chemistry titles, which made this book seem very appealing, but unfortunately that's not what it is. There is far more on fertiliser than phosphorus in its own right, interspersed with folksy site meetings that add little more than atmosphere. Sometimes the deviation from topic is dramatic. For example, the treatment of small boat illegal immigrants by Australia, sending them to a camp on Nauru, takes up around 10 pages without a mention of phosphorus. This is a social and political history book with a light seasoning of science.

All too often this deviation from topic occurs - for example in chapter 1 we get a story of nineteenth century agricultural arson in East Anglia and the life of John Henshaw for around four pages, followed by a similar amount on geology. Even the very opening, which makes use of a decaying whale in the ocean (and throws in the nature of near death experiences) seems to meander far from the subject.

This isn't helped by a tendency to make sweeping passing statements that are hard to justify. For example, in the prologue it is said that farming using phosphate fertiliser is 'a kind of agriculture that, incidentally, tends to preference men who lack knowledge over women who possess it' - both a bizarre generalisation and an odd statement given that agriculture rarely expresses any kind of preference.

Sometimes the author seems to get stuck in a sequence of short hand-waving sentences. For example: 'There would be no life without constant death. The bodies of our forebears came to form the base of our lives today. All of us are made of accumulated parts worn down and enlivened by billions of years of excess and limitation. Our bodies are living remnants of the past,' and 'We wander on this planet, looking around with trepidation, and we try to justify our place here. We lay out how it happened. There was an egg, a dream, a metamorphosis of worlds. The earth was only oceans: a diver came. A woman in the clouds fell groundward toward a group of water-dwelling animals:...'

When there is science or history of science, it can be vague or doubtful. We are told that phosphorous was 'the first chemical element that had ever been identified' - so no gold or silver or iron, for instance, was identified before? Apparently 'Davy gave Faraday his first university appointment' - impressive in that Faraday never held a university appointment. Physics particularly seems to be an issue. We are told that 'The movement of a particle through space can be modelled by what quantum physicists call an amplitude, which the rest of us typically refer to as a wave.' Hmm. Then 'When a uranium atom decays, it releases radiation, mainly in the form of photons, which move in a pattern that roughly resembles a repeating S shaped curve.' Wiggly photons: there's a novelty.

There is no doubt that phosphorus mining has had a terrible impact on environments and lives. Or that we need to look at better ways of making use of fertiliser. There are plenty of sensible points here. But it's all set in typical university humanities frame of the horrors of colonialism and capitalism. It somehow typifies the writer's cultural approach that quinoa soon turns up. Small is always beautiful. The sweeping statements return with, for instance, the claim that 'It is small farms, not large ones, that produce food more efficiently’ - this might be true, but I know some small farmers personally, and they struggle to make enough to live on - perhaps food is too cheap, but we don’t hear about that side from Lohmann. I checked for a reference to back up the claim, but the one given was to a paper about organic farms, and there are many papers demonstrating these are less efficient than conventional farming, not more.

For the right audience - fans of polemic nature books, perhaps - I can see there's an appeal, but for me it's a disappointment.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Isaac Asimov the biochemist wrote in 1959 that phosphorus "is life's bottleneck." Humans (and most animals) have around 1% phosphorus in their bodies, about 10 times the crustal abundance of P. Phosphate rock, the ore for phosphate fertilizers, is generally recycled via the phosphate cycle, generally by upwelling from the deep ocean waters. It gets into the ocean from decay of organic matter. Lohmann is a good writer, and I'm looking forward to his book.

Or was. There's a lot of good stuff here. Too bad I didn't keep notes, or write this up while I had the book at hand. I can't remember if I actually finished it before the library copy came due. So here I am, writing a late, wishy-washy review of a pretty good book befor the year's end. Shame on me. Another book where the author didn't really have enough material to make a full book. And he's hard on industrial agriculture, with some reason, but it feeds a lot of folks. Worth a look.

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is BIG NEWS for the weird girls who cycle through niche science-y hyperfixations for a living.

Did you get weirdly into mycelium for all of the early 2020s? Do you have an unreasonable wealth of knowledge about permaculture? Do you (totally unprompted) bring up gut microbiomes at dinner parties?

If you said yes to any or all of the questions above, then let Jack Lohmann introduce you to your next Roman Empire: phosphorus!!!!! Run don't walk -- I already can't wait for this book to become our entire communal personality for the foreseeable future!!

[Selena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an important book about the current state of the phosphate industry. I bough this book for the Florida History library because it does such a good job of the history and impact of the phosphate mining industry in FL. I learned more than I could have thought from this book and the only reason the rating isn't higher is because it was bit dense at times for me as someone not into science/geology. The author is so passionate and introspective on the topic (and I got to see him live and he was a sweetheart!) which makes this book a fun and almost lyrical read. Also it had beautiful illustrations?! (something I think most adult non fiction books lack but can also desperately use). Please if you care about environmental justice go give this a read.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the standard I want my sciencey nonfic to live up to. Wowowowwwwowow

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book to read if you are interested in agriculture and how the discovery of phosphorus as a fertilizer changed the environment. The prairies were stripped of native grasses that resulted in the dust bowl and big farming industry. Runoff of excess phosphorus enters our lakes, rivers and streams causing green scum and harmful algae blooms that can deplete waterways of oxygen, cause fish kills, damage ecosystems or even result in “dead zones” in larger bodies of water.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense and informational. I don't know what to do with my newfound knowledge, but I'm glad I have it!

[Anika · Rating 5 out of 5]

White Light is a book about the phosphorous cycle - why phosphorous is so important to life on Earth, and how humans have participated in these cycles over millennia as well as how big changes in mining, technology and agriculture in the last couple centuries have disrupted these cycles.

Distinct to Lohmann's style is how the journey through this content feels as important as the facts that we can learn. I agreed with the back cover reviews describing the writing as "lyrical" and I found myself asking - what purpose does that lyricism serve?

In addition to the facts and content of the book, Lohmann's words aim to help reveal the beauty of those cycles and the natural world. We feel the grandeur of looking up at a clear night sky. Through descriptions that create moments of beauty and wonder, we may find wisdom. When reading this book, I found myself savoring the sentences which cast a sharp light on the way disparate ideas, places and people all come together.

[Odonchimeg Idersaikhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Annie Oosterwyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to read, learned a little about phosphorus and its place in history, society, politics, and economics. We need more environmental lawyers.

[Amanda Pratt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book I picked up thinking ‘I know nothing about phosphorus- maybe I’ll learn something.’ Boy was that an understatement! I was lucky enough to go to an author event and was even more intrigued after the discussion about how he researched the book and gathered interviews , including how what has occurred on the island of Nauru was the nucleus of the book. I also listened to the audio, by the author, and enjoyed it in his own voice.

I learned so much more than I bargained for in this book - it’s about the role of phosphorus in the life and death cycle, sure, but ultimately is about our use of it as a fertilizer to increase food production, which has had devastating consequences for our environment and our people. It has changed our soils, rendering them void of nutrients. It has changed our waters, leaving them void of oxygen. It has changed us, leaving us nutrient deficient and at higher risk of disease. This book left me with the question, ‘what will the long term impacts of all of this be for us and the planet?’

The book presents some solutions but even those will not remove the damage we have done and they would take movements to happen, away from our reliance on these fertilizers largely driven by corporate interests with endless financial resources and influence on government power.

I will not stop thinking about what I learned in this book and no one should. I’m so glad I learned about this and I thank the author for the years of work that went into presenting this well researched and thoughtful synthesis of history, agricultural, geological, social and environmental science to us.

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was very comprehensive, although it felt somewhat meandering at times. It also paints a pretty depressing picture of the future, so that's a bit hard to sit with. ^_^;

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There would be no life without constant death.” Jack Lohmann opens White Light with this axiom, and everything that follows spirals outward from it. His book is not a straightforward scientific survey, nor is it quite memoir, travelogue, or polemic. It is, rather, an interweaving of those strands into a meditation on phosphorus, the element that links breath to soil, algae bloom to famine, bone to bread. To follow Lohmann’s narrative is to follow the hidden light that runs through every cell and every field, a light that can nourish or burn, depending on how we hold it.

What makes White Light compelling is not only its subject but its treatment. Lohmann does not lecture; he sifts. He turns over phosphate nodules like stones on a Suffolk shore, finding in each one both geological time and human story. John Stevens Henslow, rector and botanist, emerges as the emblematic figure at the beginning of the tale, walking cliffs blackened by protest fires and finding in the Red Crag’s embedded fossils a new kind of future. That this discovery—simple nodules hardened from ancient death—would ignite an industry that changed the planet is the kind of irony Lohmann relishes: science in service of both reform and ruin.

The first part of the book, Fire, is the most elemental. From Henslow’s walk to Hennig Brand’s alchemical boiling of urine in search of gold, we encounter phosphorus as myth as much as matter. It is the lightbringer, glowing without flame, the substance of matches that reshaped domestic life, the incendiary in munitions that scarred the 20th century. Here Lohmann’s prose burns too, lyrical when describing the shimmer of phosphorus in a flask, grave when recalling “phossy jaw” in match factory workers. His gift is the ability to hold contradiction: phosphorus is life’s spark, and phosphorus is weapon.

In Growth, the middle arc, Lohmann turns from metaphor to industry. He does not spare the reader the grisly details of bones exhumed from battlefields, mummified cats from Egypt, guano scraped from islands until nothing was left. Fertility was ripped from the ground and shipped across oceans, a commodity like coal or oil. Superphosphate factories rose with the Industrial Revolution, belching out a new form of abundance. Fields bloomed green, populations swelled, diets changed. But alongside prosperity came dependence and devastation: ecosystems flattened, laborers exploited, whole landscapes exhausted. Nauru, once lush, became a bare rock; Florida’s Bone Valley swelled and sank in cycles of extraction.

These chapters are perhaps the strongest in the book, both for their breadth and for the moral clarity that runs beneath them. Lohmann does not preach, but his juxtaposition is eloquent: the Inca revering guano, regulating its use with ritual, versus modern states strip-mining entire islands. Edo’s night-soil economy recycling waste into fertility, versus our flush toilets sending phosphorus into rivers where it becomes pollutant rather than nutrient. The story of phosphorus is not merely scientific; it is ethical, cultural, existential.

By the time we reach Rebirth, the final section, the scale is planetary. Lohmann invokes “the flood”—the overabundance of phosphorus in rivers and seas, the Gulf of Mexico’s oxygen-dead zone, Florida’s Piney Point disaster. He then counterbalances with “peak and valley,” the looming scarcity of reserves, the geopolitical reality that Morocco and Western Sahara hold most of the world’s supply. To depend on one element so completely, one we cannot synthesize or replace, is to hold the world’s food system in fragile balance. Lohmann’s tone here is neither alarmist nor detached; it is grave, steady, imbued with the recognition that history offers few second chances.

Yet the closing movement is not despair but possibility. In “Overhaul” and “Tiny Tracings on a Future World,” Lohmann gestures toward solutions: recycling phosphorus from waste streams, returning to composting, empowering small farmers, resisting the lure of endless industrial extraction. He acknowledges the political and economic inertia stacked against these changes, but he also insists on the necessity of remembering that death feeds life, that nothing is waste if it is returned wisely. The book’s final image—of our phosphorus signature becoming sediment, the future’s fossils—reminds us that whatever we do will endure, written in stone for millennia. Our choice is whether that signature will speak of collapse or of renewal.

As a reading experience, White Light is both luminous and uneven. The prose is consistently beautiful, its rhythms patient and grave, its images exact. At times, however, the narrative drifts. A reader hoping for rigorous chemical science may find themselves pulled instead into the poetics of geology and the politics of agriculture. Chapters can feel like sediment themselves, layers of history and anecdote compacted together, not always smoothly fused. Yet this quality also suits the subject: phosphorus resists containment, spilling from soil into rivers, from science into myth, from life into death.

The book’s strength is its refusal to treat phosphorus as only one thing. It is matter, metaphor, and mirror. It reveals what we have forgotten about cycles, about waste, about reverence. And it insists on our complicity: every bite of food, every flush of a toilet, every field of corn is traced with phosphorus, with light that will outlast us.

If I were to name the essence of my reception, I would give the book an 80 out of 100. That number reflects admiration for its lyricism, for its courage in framing an element as a story of civilization, and for its capacity to make geology feel like destiny. It also reflects recognition that the book, like phosphorus itself, can at times scatter, illuminating but diffuse.

Still, the achievement here is remarkable. White Light joins the canon of elemental books—works like Underland or Entangled Life—that do not simply inform but reorient. It asks us to see death not as ending but as continuity, to recognize waste as fertility, to measure time not in human lifespans but in layers of stone. To read it is to be reminded that life itself is luminous because it burns, and that our future depends on whether we can honor that burn without letting it consume the world.

[Sarah Potemkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The number of times I have read the first paragraph to people says so much. Both poetical and informative, I loved it.

[Julie]

Humans ruin everything

[M. K. French · Rating 5 out of 5]

The element phosphorus is one of the six that are important for life functioning. Whether it's the phosphates that add to fertilizers or is present in rocks and makes ecological or biological systems work, or the explosive element when added to water, in this book, we're guided through the history of what we know about this element and how we can use it.

The prologue begins with whalefall, the state where a whale dies and then feeds other creatures for the decades that follow. Men in 1800s England had discovered the presence of phosphorus in certain rocks, making them easier to burn, and also making crops grow better when added to the soil. This was known in various cultures for millennia all across the world, but not the specific chemical composition. Industry, war, and natural phenomena all contributed to the discovery and then the mining industry. We get the sequence of events leading up to the modern development of fertilizers, as well as the scientific research in the centuries prior. Along with mass production comes toxic waste, the consolidation of farms, and having to deal with myriad problems brought on by capitalist drive. The chapters on the Florida mining facilities are especially appalling, as they're still occurring and no one knows the full extent of the damage done.

History, politics, science and industry all affected each other in this regard, and it was fascinating to see that laid out in this manner. Each field is generally taught separately, so we think of them in separate ways. The revolution of fertilizers all over the world changed the normal farming habits, leading to the loss of family farms, land, and even government sovereignty. It decreased the organic matter in soils, decreasing the nutritional value of food and the knowledge of traditional farming methods that enriched the soil. The phosphorus eventually returns to the natural cycle of the world, but changed from the original cycles. Time will tell if this is damaging the oceans, and scientists are already aware of the environmental impact on land. Much like the prologue's whalefall, the growth is exponential at first, then slowly lessens and dies out once resources are spent. Hopefully, we can learn from this and keep the cycles of growth and renewal going for future generations.

[Harrison]

In the summer of 2018, Jack Lohmann ’19 pursued his undergraduate thesis research for the Princeton English department on the remote South Pacific island of Nauru. Encompassing only eight square miles, Nauru is the third-smallest country in the world. Lohmann found the island had been ravaged by the phosphate-mining industry, a legacy of environmental ruin that had led the cash-strapped nation to host a controversial immigration detention facility operated by Australia.

“I wanted to write about what happens to a place that’s reached the end of what people thought would happen there,” Lohmann says. “There’s been an apocalypse predicted, then that apocalypse occurs. What happens in the aftermath?”

Read my article about how WHITE LIGHT originated from the Princeton senior thesis research projects of author Jack Lohmann and illustrator Alice Maiden in the South Pacific: https://paw.princeton.edu/article/sum...

[K.E. Shadlock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me begin by saying this is an impressively researched work, with dynamic writing and an illuminating narrative supporting what could easily be seen as an esoteric topic.
However, my quibble is with the book’s organization. There’s so very much in here, but I did not feel that the organization made sense for the breadth of topics. I found myself jumping from one area to the next, with little transition time, and often relying on chapter titles to frame the discussion. I would have enjoyed this much more if this were (a) longer, and with greater depth to the variety of topics discussed, (b) organized more sensibly, and (c) had more illustrations, perhaps buttressing commentary on the molecular/chemical features. I found myself searching for more hard science-centric context, to accompany the biographic details of Phosphorus.

[Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nauru
Pacific island by Australia
Home of phosphorus mines

Pop Science, a little dry

“If we listen to those with knowledge rather than those with money, it is possible to restore the cycles of the earth.”

You can get phosphorus from natural means, it’s just harder on industrial scales. So industrial farms used mined phosphorus (which is not as good for the environment and less healthy for those who eat the food) instead, because it’s cheaper and easier than the healthier, environmentally friendly natural versions.

The solution?
When possible, buy from small, local farmers.
Healthier for you and better for the environment!

[Sandra Cruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

💡 Did you know the element that powers your DNA also comes from ancient bones, ruins, and stars?

Jack Lohmann’s White Light is a stunning meditation on phosphorus—life's spark and death’s shadow.

🌱✨ Read my latest review and rediscover the cycles that sustain us: My Review

#WhiteLight #BookReview #EnvironmentalLiterature #NatureWriting #ScienceMeetsSoul

[Ula Tardigrade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written and thought provoking, though less engaging than I expected. I usually appreciate meandering narratives and digressions, but in this case I found it hard to keep my focus. Perhaps I was reading it at the wrong time. Still, I think it is worth recommending to those interested in nature and geology.

Thanks to the publisher, Pantheon, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

[Josh Clausen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subtitle of the book is “The elemental role of phosphorous - in our cells, in our food, and in our world.”

I was excited to learn more about this very thing & the book started off strong living up to the subtitle; however, it quickly just became a historical account of how phosphorous mining has damaged various countries (England, the U.S., Nauru, etc.).

This was moreso an ecological/historical book than anything chemical. A bit of a let down.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very well written and educational. It made me seriously reconsider the use of fertilizers, also made me never want to even visit Tampa, let alone live there. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because the author does seem to double back on himself and repeat a lot of information. Overall, one of the better non-fiction books I have read so far this year.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book on a fascinating element. The sections on the pillaging and absolute destruction of the land in Florida and Nauru were thorough and depressing.

The book could have done with better editing and proof reading as a number of facts and phrases were repeated which was irritating.

[James Biser · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a discussion of some fertilizers that drastically improve agricultural production. The world is aware that we rely on farms. Because most people are not chemists, few are aware that chemicals like phosphorus are crucial.

[Christa Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic book that looks at a lot of issues related to fertilizers and human effects on the environment and ecology. A brainy take on a big picture that includes lots of detail.

[Madisen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. I liked how the author connected so many different aspects of life together very seamlessly

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is mostly about fertilizer lol. 3.5 stars

[Tfalcone · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is easy.to forget that our modern industry comes at a high environmental cost. Well written.