Material World

Why it’s on the list: Conway travels the supply chains of sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium — the physical substrate underneath an economy that likes to describe itself as weightless.

Where I heard about it

• @WillManidis’s thread — a reply to his question “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” in the thread, June 2025. Full list of replies: what is the single best book… (tweet).
• @SpencrGreenberg’s thread — a reply to his question “What non-fiction book taught you the most about how the world (or how humanity or society) really works?” in the thread, June 2025. Full list of replies: A question for you — What non-fiction… (tweet).

Named independently in two separate crowd-sourced lists answering different questions — the signal worth acting on.

Connections

• what is the single best book… (tweet) — the thread this came out of; the full recovered list lives there.
• A question for you — What non-fiction… (tweet) — the thread this came out of; the full recovered list lives there.
• Chip War — the sand-to-wafer chapter is the same story Miller tells from the semiconductor end.
• Supply Chain
• Energy