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Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on earth: firebombs, rat poison, and nerve gas. But it's also the key component of one of the most vital: fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called "the oil of our time."
The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and "dead zones" in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide – which risks rising conflict and even war.
With The Devil's Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.
Dan Egan is the author of New York Times bestseller The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. A two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife and children.
"A revelatory book that exposes human use of [phosphorus] as a double-edged sword capable of sustaining and destroying life."
– Booklist (starred review)
"[Egan] builds a story of innovation, failure, recovery, and looming catastrophe [...] [A] deep humanity resides in his writing."
– Garin Cycholl, Chicago Review of Books
"Disquieting [...] A fine account, worthy of fertile discussion, of yet another environmental disaster."
– Kirkus Reviews
"In his crisply written new book [...] Dan Egan sounds alarms on both the scarcity and overabundance sides of the phosphorus-human equation."
– Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"A cautionary history [...] This will ignite readers' curiosity."
– Publishers Weekly
"An enjoyable, lively, and thought-provoking read [...] [P]eppered with fascinating details [...] I highly recommend The Devil's Element, which presents an easily digestible introduction to a major global issue."
– Robert W. Howarth, Science
"In the tradition of environmental clarion calls like Silent Spring and The Sixth Extinction [...] The Devil's Element urges readers to confront another quietly unfolding disaster [...] Egan, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work chronicling the threats facing the Great Lakes, has a knack for telling big, unwieldy stories through absorbing personal narratives."
– Julia Rosen, Undark
