Michael Huang's Reviews > Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization

Thanks to division of labor, today we don’t know much about how anything in our life is made of, even though we knew where we bought them (Amazon) and where they were made (prob. China, or at least before decoupling). This book is full of little stories to make you appreciate the important roles basic materials like sand played in our life, and how global supply chain has become.

Here is a little story that I found funny about dependency on materials. By 1914, Britain was reliant on Germany, or rather Zeiss, for some 60 per cent of all its precision glass. Upon the declaration of war, those German supplies were cut off immediately. British Army's Field Marshal Lord Roberts, issued an "almost despairing appeal" for the general public to donate any binoculars. In 1915, a secret agent was dispatched to neutral Switzerland hoping to procure binoculars from the very country Britain was fighting. Through Swiss channels, Germany replied. I don’t know about you, but “Nein” would have been my guess. (Indeed, I would have sent 9 pairs of binoculars just make a pun.) But no, Germany would send 32,000 binoculars *immediately*, and 15,000 a month in future. This was not from some pan-European commercial cooperation, this was from the German *War Office”. To sweeten the deal, they would also send 500 telescopic rifle sights (and 5,000 - 10,000 a month in the future). If you think they lost their marbles, you are close. They lost their rubber (supply).