Asphalt : a history
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Asphalt : a history
University of Nebraska Press, c2021
- : hardback
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. 263-301
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
La Brea Tar Pits once trapped prehistoric mammals. Today that killer has a chemical cousin in the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta, Canada-immense deposits of natural asphalt destined for upgrading to synthetic crude oil. If the harvesting of this natural asphalt continues unabated, we might find ourselves stuck in a muck of a different kind.
Humanity has used asphalt for thousands of years. This humble hydrocarbon may have glued the first arrowhead to the first shaft, but the changes wrought by this material are most dramatic since its emergence as pavement. Since the 1920s the automobile and blacktop have allowed unprecedented numbers of Americans to experience the beauty of their continent from the Adirondacks to the Rockies and beyond, to Big Sur and the Pacific Coast Highway. Blacktop roads, runways, and parking lots constitute the central arteries of our environment, creating a distinct "political territory" and a "political economy of velocity."
In Asphalt: A History Kenneth O'Reilly provides a history of this everyday substance. By tracing the history of asphalt-in both its natural and processed forms-from ancient times to the present, O'Reilly sets out to identify its importance within various contexts of human society and culture. Although O'Reilly argues that asphalt creates our environment, he believes it also eventually threatens it. Looking at its role in economics, politics, and global warming, O'Reilly explores asphalt's contribution to the history, and future, of America and the world.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction: Power, Culture, Space
Part 1. Before Blacktop
1. Nature: Tar Pits and Asphalt Volcanoes
2. Use: Fired Bricks and Mummy Wars
3. Faith: Asphalt's Dark Ages
Part 2. Coming to America
4. Triumph: The Blacktop Dawn
5. Duty: Conquering Poverty and Mud, Reich and Rising Sun
6. Crusades: Asphalt in the Cold War
7. Angles: Terrorists, Tricksters, Tea Partiers
8. Overburden: The Oil-Sand Century
Conclusion: The Other Black Hole
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"