{"product_id":"carbon-a-biography-paperback-softback-9781509573677","title":"Carbon; A Biography (Paperback \/ softback) 9781509573677","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eCarbon\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eA Biography\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eBernadette Bensaude-Vincent (Author), Sacha Loeve (Author), Stephen Muecke (Translated by)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781509573677, Polity Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 7 November 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e304 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.6 x 15 x 2.3 cm, 0.476 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eCarbon: A Biography\u003c\/i\u003e is brilliant. Commonly invoked in reductive logics as ruinous of earthly life, carbon, in Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve's masterful hands, transforms into polymorphic matter. With expansive erudition, the authors unfold carbon's multiply contingent materializations – in chemistry and cosmology, technology and the arts, industry and geopolitics, and geology and biology. Instead of an isolated, inert entity to be quantified and captured, carbon becomes a wondrous, wily and generative element whose affordances and capacities arise through complex relationality. Under Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve's guidance, carbon's multiple modes of existence compel a renewed urgency for inhabiting our climate crisis otherwise.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eSuzana Sawyer, University of California, Davis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Travelling a course from the stars to the underground and from deep time to uncertain climate futures, Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve provide readers with an unparalleled elemental biography on that most fundamental of substances: carbon. Prepare to pass through an atom to encounter fossils and fire, coal and gases, crystals and nanoworlds, as the multiplicity of carbon dances into being in this fascinating and essential study.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJennifer Gabrys, University of Cambridge\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve are on a rescue mission to save carbon from its one-dimensional much-maligned role in public life today. And carbon has never been in better hands. This book, like carbon itself, is an allotrope: guidebook, philosophy, geomythology, critique and biography of carbon. The authors navigate the immense centrality of carbon to human life, from Mephitus to Lavoisier, from the periodic table to the carbon–carbon bond, from macro to nano, from common measure to common enemy. Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve are your guides to carbon's pluriverse.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eChristopher M. Kelty, UCLA\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Ambitious in scope and aspiration, this book transforms our ideas of what substance 'biographies' can achieve, exploring the variety of carbon's ways of being, narrated across cosmological, planetary and human histories. Deft in analysis, original in its interpretive concepts, it is engagingly and accessibly written – highly recommended.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJohn R. R. Christie, University of Oxford\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eCarbon: A Biography\u003c\/i\u003e is a profoundly interdisciplinary exploration of an element at the heart of life, technology, and culture. The book takes readers on a journey that transcends traditional scientific narratives, intertwining history, philosophy, and material culture to illuminate the multifaceted roles of carbon in shaping our world.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eLeonardo Anatrini, \u003ci\u003eBulletin for the History of Chemistry\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCarbon is much more than a chemical element: it is a polymorphic entity with many faces, at once natural, cultural and social. Ranging across ten million different compounds, carbon has as many personas in nature as it has roles in human life on earth. And yet it rarely makes the headlines as anything other than the villain of our fossil-based economy, feeding an addiction which is driving dangerous levels of consumption and international conflict and which, left unchecked, could lead to our demise as a species. But the impact of CO on climate change only tells part of the story, and to demonize carbon as an element which will bring about the downfall of humanity is to reduce it to a pale shadow of itself.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn this major new history of carbon, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Sacha Loeve show that this omnipresent element is at the root of countless histories and adventures through time, thanks to its extraordinary versatility. Carbon has a long and prestigious CV: its work and achievements extend far beyond the burning of fossil fuels. The fourth most abundant element in the universe and the second most abundant element in the human body, carbon is the chemical basis of all known life. Carbon chemistry has a long history, with applications ranging from jewellery to heating, underpinning developments in metallurgy, textiles, pharmaceuticals, electronics, nanoscience and green technologies.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA biography of carbon transgresses the boundaries between chemical and social existence, between nature and culture, forcing us to abandon the simplified image of carbon as the anti-hero of human civilization and enabling us to see instead the great diversity of carbon’s modes of existence. With scientific precision and literary flair, Bensaude-Vincent and Loeve unravel the surprising ways in which carbon has shaped our world, showing how unrecognizable the earth would be without it. Uncovering the many hidden lives of carbon allows us to view our own with fresh eyes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgements\u003cbr\u003eList of Illustrations\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePrologue: Why write a biography of carbon?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePART I The Invention of Carbon\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1. Mephitis\u003cbr\u003eA thing with many names\u003cbr\u003eA genius of place\u003cbr\u003eGeomythologies\u003cbr\u003eAn elixir of youth\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2. An indescribable air\u003cbr\u003eFrom mephitic air to 'sylvester spirit'\u003cbr\u003eFrom 'sylvester spirit' to fixed air\u003cbr\u003eFrom fixed air to carbonic acid\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3. Between diamond and coal\u003cbr\u003eThe diamond enigma\u003cbr\u003eA creature of nomenclature\u003cbr\u003eCoal's footprint\u003cbr\u003eWord battles\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4. An exemplary element\u003cbr\u003eA textbook example\u003cbr\u003eA material abstraction\u003cbr\u003eA metaphysical substance\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e5. Carbon liberates itself\u003cbr\u003eOne among others\u003cbr\u003eTwo or three chemistries?\u003cbr\u003eA quartet of elements\u003cbr\u003eAn exchange centre\u003cbr\u003eA standard of measurement\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6. A relational being\u003cbr\u003eAtomicity\u003cbr\u003eThe C-C bond\u003cbr\u003eAsymmetry\u003cbr\u003eDispositions and affordances\u003cbr\u003eA philosopher's stone\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e7. Welcome to the nanoworld\u003cbr\u003eFilaments doomed to oblivion\u003cbr\u003eSeeing without discovering\u003cbr\u003eA soccer ball\u003cbr\u003eThe nanotube jungle\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e8. Strategic materials\u003cbr\u003eNuclear graphite\u003cbr\u003eGraphene as an academic material\u003cbr\u003eA pure surface rich in promises\u003cbr\u003eAt the limits of materiality\u003cbr\u003eUnique and generic\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePART II Carbon civilization\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e9. Traces, stories and memories\u003cbr\u003eCarbon as writer\u003cbr\u003eCarbon as graphic designer\u003cbr\u003eDiamond engraver and reader\u003cbr\u003eRadiocarbon dating\u003cbr\u003eCarbon archive\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e10. The resilient rise of fossils\u003cbr\u003eMemories of life on Earth\u003cbr\u003eA carbon liberation movement?\u003cbr\u003eMultiple coals\u003cbr\u003ePrometheus unchained\u003cbr\u003eScarcity foretold\u003cbr\u003eA hoped-for turnaround\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e11. The bewitching power of oil\u003cbr\u003eThe black gold rush \u003cbr\u003eA capitalist sorcerer\u003cbr\u003eA gift from the Earth\u003cbr\u003eVirtues as traps\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e12. The age of plastics\u003cbr\u003eBetter things for better living... through chemistry\u003cbr\u003ePlastic miracles\u003cbr\u003eReinforced with carbon\u003cbr\u003eA continent of waste\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e13. Working towards a more sustainable economy\u003cbr\u003eFrom black gold to green oil\u003cbr\u003eTowards white carbon?\u003cbr\u003eUniversal machine\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e14. The carbon market\u003cbr\u003eCarbon finance\u003cbr\u003eThe new universal standard\u003cbr\u003eA common measure\u003cbr\u003eWhy carbon?\u003cbr\u003eCarbon pricing\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePART III Carbon temporalities\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e15. Carbon cosmogony\u003cbr\u003eIn the mists of time\u003cbr\u003eImprobable carbon\u003cbr\u003eAnthropogenic carbon?\u003cbr\u003eCarbon as Earthling!\u003cbr\u003eMultiple cycles\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e16. Turbulence in the biosphere\u003cbr\u003eCarbon Redux\u003cbr\u003eSelfish carbon?\u003cbr\u003eA melting pot\u003cbr\u003eStar of the oceans: Emiliana Huxleyi\u003cbr\u003eThe potential of soils\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e17. Rethinking time with carbon\u003cbr\u003eAnthropocene\u003cbr\u003eA grand narrative\u003cbr\u003eThe accelerating arrow of time\u003cbr\u003eDisentangling scales\u003cbr\u003eMultiple temporalities\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEPILOGUE. The heteronyms of carbon\u003cbr\u003eStories of genius\u003cbr\u003eA plurality of modes of existence\u003cbr\u003eOntography\u003cbr\u003eWho is carbon?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSubject Areas: Philosophy [\u003ca title=\"See our other books on Philosophy\" href=\"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/search?q=%22Philosophy%20%5BHP%5D%22\"\u003eHP\u003c\/a\u003e]\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Polity","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52458357588248,"sku":"9781509573677","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/2037\/5320\/files\/9781509573677.jpg?v=1785371509","url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/carbon-a-biography-paperback-softback-9781509573677","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}