THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THE TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR **Shortlisted for the Financial
Times Business Book of the Year Award** Picked as a Book of the Year by FINANCIAL TIMES
ECONOMIST and NEW STATESMAN A BBC RADIO 4 Book of the Week '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 _____________ 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.
