'Dust is a book with an extraordinary global story to tell but - and - also with an ethical
argument to advance.' Robert Macfarlane 'Superb' Telegraph 'Brilliant' Sunday Times
'Eye-opening . . . impressive' Guardian 'Like a detective dusting for fingerprints Jay Owens
masterfully reveals the hidden traces of modernity by following some of its smallest
fragments.' James Vincent author of Beyond Measure __________ Dust may seem inconsequential
so tiny and mundane as to slip below the threshold of thought. Yet within the next one hundred
years life on Earth will be profoundly changed by heat and drought - and that means dust. In
this ground-breaking book Jay Owens argues that dust is a legacy of twentieth-century progress
and a toxic threat to life in the twenty-first. Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles
tells the gripping story of how the relentless drive for profit and power has turned the world
to powder. Combining history and science travel and nature writing Owens shows how the modern
world was made through environmental devastation - and then brushed the consequences under the
carpet. From particle air pollution and nuclear fallout to desertification dried-up seas and
melting glaciers we've profoundly altered the planet we live on. The cost to human health -
and to the natural world - proves immense. From the California desert and the Dust Bowl in
Oklahoma to the desiccated remains of the Aral Sea and the edge of the Greenland ice sheet we
are shown that some of the planet's most remote and forgotten places are central to the modern
world. With clarity and insight Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles helps us
understand our legacy and discovers the big ideas found within the smallest particles.
__________ Combining history and science a sweeping look at the smallest substance and the
biggest challenges facing people and the planet. 'From Mark Kurlansky's Salt and Laura Martin's
Tea to Jared Diamond's Guns and Germs and Steel can we now add geographer Jay Owens's Dust?'
Telegraph
