Rust (eBook)

The Longest War

Jonathan Waldman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015 | 1. Auflage
304 Seiten
Simon & Schuster (Verlag)
9781451691610 (ISBN)

Infos

It has been called “the great destroyer” and “the evil.” The Pentagon refers to it as “the pervasive menace.” It destroys cars, fells bridges, sinks ships, sparks house fires, and nearly brought down the Statue of Liberty. Rust costs America more than $400 billion per year—more than all other natural disasters combined.
In a thrilling drama of man versus nature, journalist Jonathan Waldman travels from Key West, Florida, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to meet the colorful and often reclusive people who are fighting our mightiest and unlikeliest enemy. He sneaks into an abandoned steelworks with a brave artist, and then he nearly gets kicked out of Ball Corporation’s Can School. Across the Arctic, he follows a massive high-tech robot that hunts for rust in the Alaska pipeline. On a Florida film set he meets the Defense Department’s rust ambassador, who reveals that the navy’s number one foe isn’t a foreign country but oxidation itself. At Home Depot’s mother ship in Atlanta, he hunts unsuccessfully for rust products with the store’s rust-products buyer—and then tracks down some snake-oil salesmen whose potions are not for sale at the Rust Store. Along the way, Waldman encounters flying pigs, Trekkies, decapitations, exploding Coke cans, rust boogers, and nerdy superheroes.

The result is a fresh and often funny account of an overlooked engineering endeavor that is as compelling as it is grand, illuminating a hidden phenomenon that shapes the modern world. Rust affects everything from the design of our currency to the composition of our tap water, and it will determine the legacy we leave on this planet. This exploration of corrosion, and the incredible lengths we go to fight it, is narrative nonfiction at its very best—a fascinating and important subject, delivered with energy and wit.

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Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize ** A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year Rust has been called ';the great destroyer,' the ';pervasive menace,' and ';the evil.' ';This look at corrosionits causes, its consequences, and especially the people devoted to combating itis wide-ranging and consistently engrossing' (The New York Times).It is the hidden enemy, the one that challenges the very basis of civilization. This entropic menace destroys cars, fells bridges, sinks ships, sparks house fires, and nearly brought down the Statue of Libertys torch. It is rustand this book, full of wit and insight, disasters and triumphsis its story. Jonathan Waldmans first book is as obsessive as it is informativehe takes us deep into places and situations that are too often ignored or unknown (The Washington Post). In Rust, Waldman travels from Key West to Prudhoe Bay, meeting people concerned with corrosion. He sneaks into an abandoned steelworks and nearly gets kicked out of Can School. He follows a high-tech robot through an arctic winter, hunting for rust in the Alaska pipeline. In Texas, he finds a corrosion engineer named Rusty, and in Colorado, he learns of the animosity between the galvanizing industry and the paint army. Along the way, Waldman recounts stories of flying pigs, Trekkies, rust boogers, and unlikely superheroes. The result is a man-versus-nature tale thats as fascinating as it is grand, illuminating a hidden phenomenon that shapes the modern world. Rust affects everything from the design of our currency to the composition of our tap water, and it will determine the legacy we leave on this planet. This exploration of corrosion, and the incredible lengths we go to fight it, is engrossingbrilliantWaldmans gift for narrative nonfiction shines in every chapter.Watching things rust: who would have thought it could be so exciting (Natural History).

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.3.2015
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Technikgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Bauwesen
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Maschinenbau
• ISBN-13: 9781451691610 / 9781451691610