For most of recorded history, copper has proven invaluable: not only did the ancient Romans build their empire on mining copper but Christopher Columbus protected his ships from rot by lining their hulls with it. Today, this pliable and sturdy metal can be found in every house, car, airplane, cell phone, computer, and home appliance across the globe. Yet the history of copper extraction and our present relationship with the metal are fraught with profound difficulties. Copper mining causes irrevocable damage to the Earth, and the mines themselves have significant effects on the economies and wellbeing of the communities where they are located. Starting in his own backyard in the old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona--where he discovers that the dirt in his garden contains double the acceptable level of arsenic--Bill Carter follows the story of copper to the controversial Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia; to the "ring" at the London Metal Exchange, where a select group of traders buy and sell enormous amounts of the metal; and to an Alaskan salmon run threatened by mining. Page by page, Carter blends the personal and the international in a narrative that helps us understand the paradoxical relationship we have with copper, and the result is a work of first-rate journalism that fascinates on every level.

銅は文明の血液でありながら、その代償は不可視化されてきました。ビル・カーターは自庭の土壌汚染という私的な起点から、地球規模の強欲と破壊を鮮やかに描き出します。本作の真髄は、便利さの裏にある「逃れられない矛盾」を、美しくも冷徹な筆致で文学的に突きつけてくる点にあります。 ジャーナリスティックな鋭さと個人の切実な眼差しが交錯する語り口は圧巻です。電子機器に潜む金属が、いかに大地を蝕み、富と破滅を同時にもたらすのか。現代社会の足元を照らす鋭い洞察は、読者の価値観を根底から揺さぶります。文明を享受する私たちが直視すべき、戦慄と感動に満ちた魂の記録です。