Peter Tillman's Reviews > Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization

The book sounded promising. But the author meanders all over the place, loves the sound of his own voice, and takes forever to say anything meaningful. Pretentious twaddle. I'm setting this aside for now.

The book opens with the author visiting a big, low-grade Nevada gold mine. My old livelihood, and I've also visited that mine. He feels vaguely guilty that his gold wedding band required mining so much rock, treated with cyanide: after all, who really needs gold? Cyanide = POISON! He riffs off on a tangent on mercury pollution. Sacred land for the Indians. And on and on and on. Good grief.

Closing out as DNF. I skimmed ahead on other interesting topics. Hopeless. Not for me! 2 stars is likely over-generous.