Description

The New York Times bestselling author on the source of great bountyand now great perilall over the world

Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth firebombs rat poison nerve gas But its also the key component of one of the most vital fertilizer which has sustained life for billions of people In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past present and future of what has been called the oil of our time

The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history First discovered in a seventeenthcentury alchemy lab in Hamburg it soon became a highly soughtafter resource The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers to the fabled guano islands off Peru the Bone Valley of Florida and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara Over the past century phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive feeding the enormous increase in the human population Yet as Egan harrowingly reports our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and dead zones in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwidewhich risks rising conflict and even war

With The Devils Element Egan has written an essential and eyeopening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but littleknown environmental issues of our time