Books
Material World
The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization
Ed Conway | 2023
Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform our future.
These are the six most crucial substances in human history. They took us from the Dark Ages to the present day. They power our computers and phones, build our homes and offices, and create life-saving medicines. But most of us take them completely for granted.
In Material World, Ed Conway travels the globe – 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 – to uncover a secret world we rarely see. Revealing the true marvel of these substances, he follows the mind-boggling journeys, miraculous processes and little-known companies that turn the raw materials we all need into products of astonishing complexity.
As we wrestle with climate change, energy crises and the threat of new global conflict, Conway shows why these substances matter more than ever before, and how the hidden battle to control them will shape our geopolitical future. This is the story of civilisation – our ambitions and glory, innovations and appetites – from a new perspective: literally from the ground up.
Publisher: WH Allen
Book Reviews
No one could accuse Conway of lacking global sweep in his examination of six materials in the new economy. He crosses the world to many mines and quarries, as well as the high-tech factories that need what they produce, to drive home an awkward truth. We still live in a material world and rely on drilling machines and explosives to feed it.
– John Gapper, Financial Times
Conway imagines a world in which humankind succeeds in replacing most of its fossil fuels with renewable alternatives and in which energy is clean and abundant. He warns, however, that getting there will require considerable technological and geopolitical ingenuity.
– Barry Eichengreen, Foreign Affairs
Author Book Discussions
About the Author
Ed Conway is the Economics Editor of Sky News and a columnist for the Times.
In 2018 he won the Wincott Foundation Journalist of the Year Award.
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