Book Review: “Material World: The Six Raw Materials that Shape Modern Civilization”by Ed Conway

Ed Conway is a British economics journalist who works for Sky News and writes a column for The Times (London). His book, Material World, focuses on six raw materials: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil, and lithium. The point the book relentlessly drives home is that, for all our attention to the virtual  world, we are all dependent on real, material things. It also points out environmental tradeoffs. For example, making solar panels is an international endeavor requiring mining and a good deal of energy. Another example is electric cars, which require considerably more copper wiring than car with internal combustion engines, and the mining of copper is not without its problems. Moreover, the use of these materials, which involves mining, transportation, processing, and manufacturing of useful products, is not the province of a single country and requires considerable international trade.

While the author tries to be optimistic in his conclusion, the message of the book is the complexity of dealing with the environmental challenges. While the chants on the right of “drill, baby, drill” are nonsense as a solution to our real problems, environmental groups are also often simplistic in their approach in opposing many projects. Environmentalists might want to set up input output models or other analytical techniques to evaluate tradeoffs.

Also, while Conway praises the use of fertilizers to grow the necessary crops to feed the world’s population, he does not discuss that continuing population growth may be part of the problem. Also, deforestation in order to make more land available for farming with the miracle fertilizers has its environmental problems, as does animal agriculture. The benefits from these materials in making possible more food, in other words, create other problems. There are tradeoffs everywhere.

This book also provides some interesting history. For example, during World War I, Britain had a shortage of binoculars and Germany had a shortage of rubber. According to this book, there is evidence that Britain and Germany effectively traded binoculars and rubber in neutral Switzerland during the war. One can also learn why Bolivia is a landlocked country because of a 19th century war during which Chile obtained Bolivia’s coastal regions, which also happen to be mineral-rich.

In addition, one can learn a bit of chemistry in reading about the processing of various materials and their conversions into useful products, such as batteries. Perhaps there is more detail than some readers may want, and it is difficult to recall it all, but it is interesting.

Conway did a great deal of research to judge by his endnotes and bibliography as well as the international travels he recounts to various mining and production sites around the world. While competently written, the book is not exactly a page-turner. Amusingly, he relies, perhaps a bit much, on his inner Kurt Vonnegut in the repeated use of the phrase – “So it goes in the Material World.” Reading the book all at once, as I did, may not be the best approach. There is a lot of information to absorb. 

I recommend the book as a useful contribution to understanding the environmental challenges ahead from a different perspective than is usually offered. It is not the whole story, but an important part of the story.