Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
Carbon : A Biography, Hardback Book

Carbon : A Biography Hardback

Hardback

Pre-Order

Description

Carbon is much more than a chemical element: it is a polymorphic entity with many faces, at once natural, cultural and social.

Ranging across 10 million different compounds, carbon has as many personas in nature as it has roles in human life on Earth. And yet it rarely makes the headlines as anything other than the villain of our fossil-based economy, feeding an addiction which is driving dangerous levels of consumption and international conflict and which, left unchecked, could lead to our demise as a species.

But the impact of CO  on climate change only tells part of the story, and to demonise carbon as an element which will bring about the downfall of humanity is to reduce it to a pale shadow of itself. In this major new history of carbon, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Sacha Loeve show that this omnipresent element is at the root of countless histories and adventures through time, thanks to its extraordinary versatility.  Carbon has a long and prestigious CV: its work and achievements extend far beyond the burning of fossil fuels.  The fourth most abundant element in the universe and the second most abundant element in the human body, carbon is the chemical basis of all known life.  Carbon chemistry has a long history, with applications ranging from jewellery to heating, underpinning developments in metallurgy, textiles, pharmaceuticals, electronics, nanoscience and green technologies. A biography of carbon transgresses the boundaries between chemical and social existence, between nature and culture, forcing us to abandon the simplified image of carbon as the anti-hero of human civilization and enabling us to see instead the great diversity of carbon’s modes of existence.  With scientific precision and literary flair, Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve unravel the surprising ways in which carbon has shaped our world, showing how unrecognisable the Earth would be without it.

Uncovering the many hidden lives of carbon allows us to view our own with fresh eyes.

Information

Save 16%

£30.00

£24.99

Pre-Order
Pre-Order
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information