Still the Iron Age: Iron and Steel in the Modern World
By Vaclav Smil
Categories: Engineering & Transportation, History, Science & Math
Still the Iron Age (2016) is Vaclav Smil's history of iron and steel, the metals he argues still underpin modern civilization. He follows ironmaking from charcoal furnaces to the blast furnace, the Bessemer process, open-hearth and electric-arc steel. He looks at steel's uses, its energy needs and environmental impacts, and its future, with China now making about half of the world's output.
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