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Material World
- Author
- Ed Conway
- Narrator
- Ed Conway
- Publisher
- Ebury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 15 June 2023
- Run Time
- 15 hours 12 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
'A compelling narrative of the human story' TIM MARSHALL, author of Prisoners of Geography
'Lively, rich and exciting... full of surprises' PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads
©2023 Ed Conway (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Critics Review
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An eye-opening celebration of human ingenuity
Financial Times, Best Books of 2023 - Business
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Lively, rich and exciting ... full of surprises. Underlines that to understand global geopolitics, you need to understand natural resources and geology
Peter Frankopan, author of THE SILK ROADS
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Fascinating . . . A revelation
The Times, Best Science and Environment Books of 2023
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A compelling narrative of the human story
Tim Marshall, author of PRISONERS OF GEOGRAPHY
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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Brilliant
Financial Times - Best Summer Books of 2023: Economics
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Fascinating, fun, and vitally important. A wonderful exploration of the world we've built yet somehow manage to ignore
Tim Harford, bestselling author of HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD ADD UP
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Revealing and empowering
New Statesman, Best Summer Books of 2023
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Expansive, erudite, and edifying. A stunning insight into the materials that shaped our history and built the modern world
Prof. Lewis Dartnell, author of 'BEING HUMAN: How our Biology shaped World History'
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[An] enlightening account... he throws new light on how the world works... Not a sentence jars in Material World
The Times
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A vivid guide to the “material world” on which we all, often unconsciously, rely – and essential background reading to understand securonomics
New Statesman, Books of the Year 2023
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Ed Conway
- Narrator
- Ed Conway
- Duration
- 15 hours 12 minutes
- Release Date
- 15 June 2023
- ISBN
- 9780753560037
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Ebury Publishing
- Genre
- Economic history, Economic geology, Materials science, General and world history, History of science
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERSand, 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.'A compelling narrative of the human story' TIM MARSHALL, author of Prisoners of Geography'Lively, rich and exciting... full of surprises' PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads©2023 Ed Conway (P)2023 Penguin Audio
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