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Ed Conway's book Material World – A Substantial Story of Our Past and Future (2023) is also available in German thanks to Sebastian Vogel's translation with the subtitle "How six raw materials shape the history of humanity". Specifically, this is about: sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium.
"I stood on the edge of a precipice and looked down into the deepest hole I had ever seen in my life." The report that the successful English author and Time columnist puts at the beginning of the 542-page book couldn't be more gripping. Readers become those affected. He takes us to the Cortez Mine, a gigantic gold mine in Nevada (USA). The trucks resemble toy cars. But in fact “the tires are as high as a double-decker bus.” Ed Conway ponders and calculates: "For a standard gold bar of 400 troy ounces, you have to mine around 5,000 tons of earth. That's equivalent to the weight of ten fully loaded Airbus 380 superjumbos." Such images are convincing and affect you. His preface recalls the beginning of Homer's Odyssey. "These materials are the unsung heroes of modern times, and it's time we heard their story."
The six major chapters are also written in the gripping and exciting style. "Sand is the great mystery of the material world." Who's surprised? Not all sand is the same; the grain size, which is between 0.063 and two millimeters, is less important than the material. The majority of the sand consists of silicon dioxide, i.e. quartz, while other sand grains consist of parrot fish excrement. When it comes to glass made of quartz sand, he chooses a figurative comparison. "Lenses made of glass enable people to see into space."
In the history of salt (from page 141) he locates "origins of power and tyranny". Using the example of China, its development from thirteen dynasties to communism, he sees the salt monopoly as a common thread that runs through history.
"If steel forms the skeleton and concrete the flesh of our world, then copper is the nervous system of civilization, the material of circuits and cables (…)". According to the American investment bank Goldmann Sachs in 2021, copper is the new gold (p. 285). The reason for this lies in the importance of copper for electricity (keyword: copper cables and copper coils).
He shows the importance of crude oil and natural gas using tomatoes as an example. Conway argues: A large proportion of them thrive in greenhouses, which are usually heated with oil or gas, are partly made of plastic foil and are artificially lit to extend the phase of photosynthesis. His summary: “The taste of fossil fuels!”
When it comes to lithium, which he calls “white gold,” he advocates recycling. "And since lithium is still lithium even in a depleted lithium-ion battery, you could theoretically recycle it and not have to throw it away. Theoretically."
"Russia is the world's largest reservoir of raw materials," says Jeronim Perović, scientific director of the Center for Eastern European Studies and adjunct professor at the University of Zurich, beginning his latest book. In the technically sound work Raw Material Power Russia, he describes the history of Russia's development as an export country for oil and natural gas. "Energy history is closely linked to Russia's rise to become a modern great power. At the same time, Russian energy history is a part of global history." Russia was always at an advantage and “able to largely supply itself with energy from its own raw material sources”.
In the introduction, three maps show the oil and gas pipelines to Europe as well as the oil and gas transport infrastructure within Russia. The content is about the history of these foreign relations based on oil and gas over a period of more than a hundred years up to the present. On the one hand, Russia's raw materials form the basis for its rise to become a great power, but on the other hand, "the country entered into cross-border relationships and dependencies." The book thus opens up a broader perspective and adds a new perspective to the narrative of the West's one-sided dependence on Russian gas.
The development of the large West Siberian gas reserves laid the foundation for the Russian success story. Gas became the most important source of income, but also increased dependence on Western markets, which a recent agency report from May 13 confirms. “Gazprom in the red, China cannot replace European business,” was the title of an analysis in STANDARD. The reality is sobering for Russia, as it reads: "In 2023, a loss of seven billion dollars has accumulated."
The income from the energy market is necessary to compensate for deficits in the country. "In the late Soviet period, a substantial portion of the foreign exchange revenue generated from oil sales had to be used to purchase American and Canadian grain," explains the author. Regarding the Putin era, which is characterized by state control over the raw materials sector, Perović analyzes the current situation in Russia. "But unlike under Yeltsin, under the current authoritarian tendencies, Russian society is hardly given any freedom to actively and self-confidently participate in shaping the country."
Conclusion: If Material World reads like a gripping crime novel, Russia, the raw materials power, shows the complex relationships and dependencies of Russia, the oil and gas power, with foreign countries. (Thomas Hofmann, May 24, 2024)