Material World

Sand, iron, salt, oil, copper and lithium: these seemingly inconspicuous but magical materials have decided the fate and prosperity of empires, created and destroyed civilisations and fuelled our greed and ingenuity for millennia. But the story of these unsung heroes is far from over, and the battle for their control will determine our future. After all, these raw materials form the framework of our modern world: clean drinking water, electricity, vital vaccines and even an ecological turnaround would be inconceivable without them. In this book, Ed Conway literally gets to the bottom of the history and future of our human civilisation in a new way.