Dust: A History and a Future of Environmental Disaster is published by Hodder in the UK & Commonwealth, and Abrams Books in the US.
UK: 31 August - Amazon - Waterstones - Foyles - Bookshop.org
US: 14 November Abrams - Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Bookshop.org
In this ground-breaking book, Jay Owens argues that dust is a legacy of twentieth-century progress and a toxic threat to life in the twenty-first.
Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles tells the gripping story of how the relentless drive for profit and power has turned the world to powder. Combining history and science, travel and nature writing, Owens shows how the modern world was made through environmental devastation – and then brushed the consequences under the carpet. From particle air pollution and nuclear fallout to desertification, dried-up seas and melting glaciers, we’ve profoundly altered the planet we live on. The cost to human health – and to the natural world – proves immense.
From the California desert and the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma to the desiccated remains of the Aral Sea and the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, we are shown that some of the planet’s most remote and forgotten places are central to the modern world. With clarity and insight, Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles helps us understand our legacy and discovers the big ideas found within the smallest particles.
'Brilliant. ... Owens is a serious writer: impassioned but intelligent, powerful but subtle.' Book of the week, The Times
'From Mark Kurlansky's Salt and Laura Martin's Tea to Jared Diamond's Guns and Germs and Steel, can we now add geographer Jay Owens's Dust?' Telegraph
'Eye-opening'. Guardian
Previous coverage:
Publishing coverage:
UK: 31 August - Amazon - Waterstones - Foyles - Bookshop.org
US: 14 November Abrams - Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Bookshop.org
In this ground-breaking book, Jay Owens argues that dust is a legacy of twentieth-century progress and a toxic threat to life in the twenty-first.
Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles tells the gripping story of how the relentless drive for profit and power has turned the world to powder. Combining history and science, travel and nature writing, Owens shows how the modern world was made through environmental devastation – and then brushed the consequences under the carpet. From particle air pollution and nuclear fallout to desertification, dried-up seas and melting glaciers, we’ve profoundly altered the planet we live on. The cost to human health – and to the natural world – proves immense.
From the California desert and the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma to the desiccated remains of the Aral Sea and the edge of the Greenland ice sheet, we are shown that some of the planet’s most remote and forgotten places are central to the modern world. With clarity and insight, Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles helps us understand our legacy and discovers the big ideas found within the smallest particles.
'Brilliant. ... Owens is a serious writer: impassioned but intelligent, powerful but subtle.' Book of the week, The Times
'From Mark Kurlansky's Salt and Laura Martin's Tea to Jared Diamond's Guns and Germs and Steel, can we now add geographer Jay Owens's Dust?' Telegraph
'Eye-opening'. Guardian
Previous coverage:
- A Speck of Dust | a programme for BBC Radio 4 Four Thought, 2017
- After We Die, Our Dust Will Live Forever | featured on WNPR's Colin McEnroe Show, 2019
- The Blissfully Slow World of Internet Newsletters | profile in WIRED, 2016
Publishing coverage:
- Hodder & Stoughton snares exploration of dust by Owens | The Bookseller, 2021
- 2022 in books: highlights for the year ahead | Guardian, 2022
- The best science books coming your way in 2022 | New Scientist, 2022