Concrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future [Paperback]

A fascinating history of the carbon footprint of our concrete world—from ancient Roman architecture to urban cityscapes—and the trouble it spells for sustainability amidst rapid climate change.

For readers ofThe Sixth ExtinctionandThe Uninhabitable Earth,Concreteexplores the history of a material that has been central to architecture and design for thousands of years—and what its future looks like in a world experiencing rapid climate change.

Imagine a world without concrete: there’d be no skyscrapers, no grand irrigation projects, no out of season vegetables, no highways. There would be a shortage of electricity, more mud in some places, more solitude in others. But because of the fossil fuels and other resources required to make concrete, there also would also be less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and less dramatic climate change. InConcrete: From Ancient Origins to a Problematic Future, Mary Soderstrom tells the story of concrete’s surprising past, extravagant present, and uncertain future with careful research, lively anecdotes, and thoughtful reflection.

Mary Soderstrom has come far from her birthplace of Walla Walla, Washington. A world traveller, Soderstrom is now a Canadian and Montrealer. She is also the award-winning author of more than a dozen fiction and non-fiction books, including her acclaimedRoad Through Time: The Story of Humanity on the Move, and most recently,Frenemy Nations: Love and Hate between Neighbo(u)ring States. [For] those of us who are thinking about, and educating for, deep cultural change, . . . for those of us that care about what it means to be good, in the deepest sense; to participants in an earth-system that is failing at human hands, in the context of recognizing the repercussions of the Anthropocene. A very readable, thoughtful and well-documented account of a material that helps and hurts us in almost equal measure. A fascinalSz