Description

By (author) Conway Ed

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
*An Economist, Financial Times, Times and New Statesman Book of the Year*

Shortlisted for the FT Business Book of the Year Award and the British Academy Book Prize, Longlisted for the Wainwright Conservation Writing Prize

”Compelling” TIM MARSHALL

”Lively, rich and exciting” PETER FRANKOPAN

”Vitally important” TIM HARFORD

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Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world, and they will transform our future.

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 these six crucial materials completely for granted.

In Material World, Ed Conway travels the globe to uncover a secret world we rarely see. 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.

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An eye-opening celebration of human ingenuity

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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

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Fascinating . . . A revelation

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A compelling narrative of the human story

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Brilliant

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Fascinating, fun, and vitally important. A wonderful exploration of the world we”ve built yet somehow manage to ignore

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Revealing and empowering

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Expansive, erudite, and edifying. A stunning insight into the materials that shaped our history and built the modern world

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[An] enlightening account… he throws new light on how the world works… Not a sentence jars in Material World

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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

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”[Conway”s] book
deconstructs the modern world for us to see inside … As we fret and argue about how to tackle climate change, economic development and geopolitical tensions, this book is a
timely reminder of our reliance on physical stuff, and
offers a challenging, practical perspective on these debates …
Enlightening

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Goes straight on the ”
must-read” list …
Conway is one of the most adroit commentators on economics and business of our time

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A stunning book that will transform the way you think about economics and life. Brilliantly written

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[A] masterful exploration of the materials that underpin civilisation . . . The biography of an element or material is now a familiar format . . . but
what distinguishes Material World is his access . . .
This is not a remote, academic analysis: he has been to the salt mines beneath the North Sea, the mineral railway of the Atacama Desert, the Chilean town being swallowed by the world”s demand for copper

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Endlessly fascinating

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Conway”s gripping explanation of a world you didn”t know needed explaining deserves this highest of accolades: Material World, once read, leaves us baffled that nobody ever thought of writing it before

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In Material World,
Ed Con