Skip to content
Description
By: Jack Lohmann
A profound and lyrical reflection on the cyclical nature of life, what happens when we break that cycle, and how to repair it—told through the fate of phosphorus
“There would be no life without constant death.” So begins Jack Lohmann’s remarkable debut, White Light, a mesmerizing swirl of ecology, geology, chemistry, history, agricultural science, investigative reporting, and the poetry of the natural world. Wherever life has roamed, its record is left in the sediment; over centuries, that dead matter is compacted into rock; and in that rock is phosphate—one phosphorus atom bonded to four oxygen atoms—life preserved in death, with all its surging force.
In 1842, when the naturalist John Stevens Henslow, Darwin’s beloved botany professor, discovered the potential of that rock as a fertilizer, little did he know his countrymen would soon be grinding up the bones of dead soldiers and mummified Egyptian cats to exploit their phosphate content. Little did he know he’d spawn a global mining industry that would change our diets, our lifestyles, and the face of the planet.
Lohmann guides us from Henslow’s Suffolk, where the phosphate fertilizer industry took root, to Bone Valley in Central Florida, where it has boomed alongside big ag—leaving wreckage like the Piney Point disaster in its wake—to far-flung Nauru, an island stripped of its life force by the ravenous young industry. We sift through the earth’s geological layers and eras, speak in depth with experts and locals, and explore our past relationship with sustainable farming—including in seventeenth-century Japan, when one could pay rent with their excrement—before we started wasting just as much phosphate as we mine.
Sui generis, filled with passion and rigorous reporting, White Light invites us to renew our broken relationship not just with the earth but with our own death—and the life it brings after us.
A profound and lyrical reflection on the cyclical nature of life, what happens when we break that cycle, and how to repair it—told through the fate of phosphorus
“There would be no life without constant death.” So begins Jack Lohmann’s remarkable debut, White Light, a mesmerizing swirl of ecology, geology, chemistry, history, agricultural science, investigative reporting, and the poetry of the natural world. Wherever life has roamed, its record is left in the sediment; over centuries, that dead matter is compacted into rock; and in that rock is phosphate—one phosphorus atom bonded to four oxygen atoms—life preserved in death, with all its surging force.
In 1842, when the naturalist John Stevens Henslow, Darwin’s beloved botany professor, discovered the potential of that rock as a fertilizer, little did he know his countrymen would soon be grinding up the bones of dead soldiers and mummified Egyptian cats to exploit their phosphate content. Little did he know he’d spawn a global mining industry that would change our diets, our lifestyles, and the face of the planet.
Lohmann guides us from Henslow’s Suffolk, where the phosphate fertilizer industry took root, to Bone Valley in Central Florida, where it has boomed alongside big ag—leaving wreckage like the Piney Point disaster in its wake—to far-flung Nauru, an island stripped of its life force by the ravenous young industry. We sift through the earth’s geological layers and eras, speak in depth with experts and locals, and explore our past relationship with sustainable farming—including in seventeenth-century Japan, when one could pay rent with their excrement—before we started wasting just as much phosphate as we mine.
Sui generis, filled with passion and rigorous reporting, White Light invites us to renew our broken relationship not just with the earth but with our own death—and the life it brings after us.
You may also like
熱銷中 Top Trending
Dog Man 13: Dog Man: Big Jim Begins: A Graphic Novel (Dog Man #13)
Sale priceFrom HK$75.00
Regular priceHK$150.00
Sold out
Dragon Masters #27 (正版) Haunting of the Ghost Dragon (Branches) (Tracey West)
Sale priceHK$47.00
Regular priceHK$69.00
In stock
Dork Diaries #15 I Love Paris! (Rachel Renee Russell)
Sale priceHK$67.00
Regular priceHK$112.00
In stock
Dog Man (正版) #11 Twenty Thousand Fleas Under the Sea (Dav Pilkey)
Sale priceFrom HK$59.00
Regular priceHK$90.00
In stock
POKEMON: SUPER DUPER EXTRA DELUXE ESSENTIAL HANDBOOK
Sale priceHK$149.00
Regular priceHK$210.00
In stock
Ultimate Football Heroes Series 1 Collection 10 Books Set (Matt & Tom Oldfield)
Sale priceHK$295.00
Regular priceHK$910.00
In stock
Harry Potter (正版)(#1) and the Philosopher's Stone MinaLima Edition (Hardback) (J.K. Rowling)
Sale priceHK$239.00
Regular priceHK$385.00
In stock
Britannica All New Kids Encyclopedia - What We Know & What We Don't (UK)
Sale priceHK$229.00
Regular priceHK$351.00
In stock
Essential English: Spelling Punctuation and Grammar
Sale priceHK$77.00
Regular priceHK$140.00
In stock