in a material world
From dirt and sand, to rope and fabric, to coal and oil--nonfiction about seemingly simple materials and the ways they've influenced the course of human history.
created by deathprobably
last updated April, 2026
Comments
love!! i'll go through my library soon to see if i have anything to add
Thank you! I would super appreciate anything you recommend! ❤️
As always, I'm accepting suggestions and critiques of what's included! Feel free to share thoughts and recommendations.
Scope of this list will be nonfiction books about manmade materials and commodified natural resources, and specifically how they influenced or shaped the making of the world we know today.
Thanks in advance!
Omg I love this death !
Haha, thank! I wanted everything I'd been gathering up in one spot.
cutee!! i love this idea, we never really think about the materials that make up our everyday and where they come from and what it cost to have them.
last year i read Black in Blues by Imani Perry, it might not fully fit your List because it's just one part of a larger whole, but it talked about the indigo trade and how the slave trade initially started because of indigo and traces indigo + the color blue in general as an exploration of Black history :)
Yes! The first adult nonfiction I ever read was Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel and it changed so much of how I see fabric and my job in computing. It was wild to really understand what all the textile industry enabled and touched, as well as how computing’s automation issue is inherited honestly from the progression of weaving technologies. Made me appreciate the technology trees in the Civ games too LOL!
Considering the painful impact our entire world has felt because of the slave trade, I’d say that counts! Thank you for the rec!!
all of these sound sooo interesting, tysm for the list of recs!! Fabric of Civilization sounds so cool especially. not the civ tech trees 😭
