Title
The world in a grain : the story of sand and how it transformed civilization / Vince Beiser.
ISBN
9780399576423 (hardcover)
0399576428 (hardcover)
9780399576430
Published
New York : Riverhead Books, 2018.
Language
English
Description
294 pages ; 24 cm
Call Number
TA455.S3 B45 2018
Dewey Decimal Classification
620.1/91
Summary
The gripping story of the most important overlooked commodity in the world -- sand -- and the crucial role it plays in our lives. After water and air, sand is the natural resource that we consume more than any other -- even more than oil. Every concrete building and paved road on Earth, every computer screen and silicon chip, is made from sand. From Egypt's pyramids to the Hubble telescope, from the world's tallest skyscraper to the sidewalk below it, from Chartres' stained-glass windows to the smartphone in your hand, sand shelters us, connects us, and inspires us. It's the ingredient that makes possible our cities, our science, our lives -- and our future. And, incredibly, we're running out of it. The World in a Grain is the compelling true story of the hugely important and diminishing natural resource that grows more essential every day, and of the people who mine it, sell it, build with it -- and sometimes, even kill for it. It's also a provocative examination of the little-noticed, but deadly serious human and environmental costs incurred by our dependence on sand.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
The most important solid substance on Earth
Part I. How sand built the twentieth century's industrialized world
The skeleton of cities
Paved with good intentions
The thing that lets us see everything
Part II. How sand is building the twenty-first century's globalized, digitized world
High tech, high purity
Fracking facilitator
Miami Beach-less
Man-made lands
Desert war
Concrete conquers the city
Beyond sand.
