Asphalt : a history
著者
書誌事項
Asphalt : a history
University of Nebraska Press, c2021
- : hardback
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注記
Bibliography: p. 263-301
Includes index
内容説明・目次
内容説明
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.
目次
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
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