Everything is Material

Blurb

A new history of humankind that promises to change the way we interact with our environment by reckoning with materials as forces of human history.

The year 2020 marked a remarkable transition. It was the year in which our environment officially turned grey. Materials now exceed the weight of all living biomass on earth: an unimaginable total of 1154 gigatons. Nearly half of this is concrete. The other half is largely made up out of aggregates, bricks, metals, asphalt, glass, plastics, wood, and thousands of other materials. All made by a particular animal that accounts for an insignificant 0.01 percent of the total 1120 gigatons biomass on this planet: humans. 

Never before have we been so deeply entangled with materials, and simultaneously so disengaged from them. Through the grand histories of concrete, steel, soil, brick, wood, plastic, fertiliser, and glass, archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers shows us how materials are not only witnesses to human history, they’ve helped make it happen.