Material World

Archival Summary & Scope

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE
AN ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Finalist for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award

Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium: these fundamental materials have historically shaped empires and continue to fuel our modern ingenuity. Though we live in a digital age, our 21st-century lives are deeply rooted in the material; in 2017 alone, more "stuff" was extracted from the earth than in all of human history before 1950. In *Material World*, Ed Conway embarks on an epic global journey—from Europe's deepest mines to Taiwan's silicon chip factories and lithium-rich pools—to reveal the human networks and miraculous processes that transform raw resources into the wonders of our contemporary world. This is the story of human civilization from the ground up, offering an essential new perspective on our material reality.