When it comes to examining the roots of the modern world, a new book takes an elemental approach.
“The Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization” (Knopf) by Ed Conway analyzes the influence of the elements iron, copper, and lithium, along with salt, oil, and sand.
“Without them, normal life as we know it would disintegrate,” Conway writes.
How is that?
Sand is invaluable in the construction of buildings, bridges or roads in the world. But it is also vital for the production of glass and silicon chips.
But even though it is the “most common” substance in the Earth’s crust, “there is never enough.”
In China, sand smugglers have dredged so much sand from Yangtze River bridges that they are on the brink of collapse and the local ecosystem is threatened.
Meanwhile, in India the “sand mafias” control a hugely profitable industry.
“The Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization” (Knopf) by Ed Conway analyzes the influence of the elements iron, copper, and lithium, along with salt, oil, and sand.
There is documented evidence that these criminal organizations have carried out “murders, kidnappings and brutal beatings” to collect and sell this seemingly ubiquitous material.
But nothing reveals the importance of these materials more than oil. Its transformation into gasoline was an integral part of the history of the 20th century.
Gasoline gave rise to automobile culture, but it also fueled the victory of the Allies in World War II.
As General George Patton told Dwight Eisenhower, “My men can eat their belts, but my tanks must have gas.”
The transformation of oil into gasoline was an integral part of the history of the 20th century. Cavan – stock.adobe.com
Adolf Hitler agreed, explaining that Germany needed to invade the Soviet Union in part to control its oil.
“The life of the Axis depends on these oil fields,” he wrote to Mussolini.
Japan spent the war trying to capture the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies.
Oil was so important that one of the reasons Japanese military leaders used kamikaze pilots was because they only needed enough fuel to reach a target, not return from it.
Salt has helped shape the modern world. pepebaeza – stock.adobe.com
The Allies were less desperate for oil and gas because they had access to enormous supplies in the United States and the Middle East.
The Axis did not. Germany’s gasoline supply was so limited that in 1945 its air force, the Luftwaffe, was “effectively grounded.”
In his final days in a Berlin bunker, Hitler was making war plans for German divisions that were out of fuel, and their trucks were by then drawn by oxen.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn