A01=Fred Hogge
Author_Fred Hogge
Category=PDX
climate
climate change
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
geology
harvesting
history
human development
human history
Ice
industry
John Reader
limited resource
Mark Kurlansky
natural resource
resource
Salt
science
social history
The Untold History of the Potato
Product details
- ISBN 9781639361830
- Weight: 352g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 02 Mar 2023
- Publisher: Pegasus Books
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
An exploration of humanity’s relationship with ice since the dawn of civilization, Of Ice and Men reminds us that only by understanding this unique substance can we save the ice on our planet—and perhaps ourselves.
Ice tells a story. It writes it in rock. It lays it down, snowfall by snowfall at the ends of the earth where we may read it like the rings on a tree. It tells our planet’s geological and climatological tale.
Ice tells another story too: a story about us. It is a tale packed with swash-buckling adventure and improbable invention, peopled with driven, eccentric, often brilliant characters. It tells how our species has used ice to reshape the world according to our needs and our desires: how we have survived it, harvested it, traded it, bent science to our will to make it—and how in doing so we have created globe-spanning infrastructures that are entirely dependent upon it.
And even after we have done all that, we take ice so much for granted that we barely notice it.
Ice has supercharged the modern world. It has allowed us to feed ourselves and cure ourselves in ways unimaginable two hundred years ago. It has enabled the global population to rise from less than 1 billion to nearly 7½ billion—which just happens to cover the same period of time as humanity has harvested, manufactured, and distributed ice on an industrial scale.
And yet the roots of our fascination with ice and its properties run much deeper than the recent past.
An exploration of humanity’s relationship with ice since the dawn of civilization, Of Ice and Men reminds us that only by understanding this unique substance can we save the ice on our planet—and perhaps ourselves.
Ice tells a story. It writes it in rock. It lays it down, snowfall by snowfall at the ends of the earth where we may read it like the rings on a tree. It tells our planet’s geological and climatological tale.
Ice tells another story too: a story about us. It is a tale packed with swash-buckling adventure and improbable invention, peopled with driven, eccentric, often brilliant characters. It tells how our species has used ice to reshape the world according to our needs and our desires: how we have survived it, harvested it, traded it, bent science to our will to make it—and how in doing so we have created globe-spanning infrastructures that are entirely dependent upon it.
And even after we have done all that, we take ice so much for granted that we barely notice it.
Ice has supercharged the modern world. It has allowed us to feed ourselves and cure ourselves in ways unimaginable two hundred years ago. It has enabled the global population to rise from less than 1 billion to nearly 7½ billion—which just happens to cover the same period of time as humanity has harvested, manufactured, and distributed ice on an industrial scale.
And yet the roots of our fascination with ice and its properties run much deeper than the recent past.
Fred Hogge is a historian and filmmaker who has collaborated on or ghost-written books on a wide variety of subjects from the history of cocktails to martial arts. He is British by birth and lives in Thailand.
