White Light - by Jack Lohmann (Hardcover)

About the Book

""There would be no life without constant death." So begins Jack Lohmann's remarkable debut, White Light, a mesmerizing swirl of ecology, geology, chemistry, history, agricultural science, investigative reporting, and the poetry of the natural world. Wherever life has roamed, its record is left in the sediment; over centuries, that dead matter is compacted into rock; and in that rock is phosphate-one phosphorus atom bonded to four oxygen atoms-life preserved in death, with all its surging force. In 1842, when the naturalist John Stevens Henslow, Darwin's beloved botany professor, discovered the potential of that rock as a fertilizer, little did he know his countrymen would soon be grinding up the bones of dead soldiers and mummified Egyptian cats to exploit their phosphate content. Little did he know he'd spawn a global mining industry that would change our diets, our lifestyle, and the face of the planet. Lohmann guides us from Henslow's Suffolk, where the phosphate fertilizer industry took root, to Bone Valley in Central Florida, where it has boomed alongside big ag-leaving wreckage like the Piney Point disaster in its wake-to far-flung Nauru, an island stripped of its life force by the ravenous young industry. We sift through the Earth's geological layers and eras, speak in depth with experts and locals, and explore our past relationship with cyclical farming-including in seventeenth century Japan, when one could pay their rent with their excrement-before we started wasting just as much phosphate as we mine. Sui generis, filled with passion and rigorous reporting, White Light invites us to renew our broken relationship not just with the Earth but with our own death-and the life it brings after us"--

Book Synopsis

"At once lyrical and exacting, clear-sighted and deeply informed--a beautiful book." --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky

A profound and poetic reflection on the cyclical nature of life, what happens when we break that cycle, and how to repair it--told through the fate of phosphorus

"There would be no life without constant death." So begins Jack Lohmann's remarkable debut, White Light, a mesmerizing swirl of ecology, geology, chemistry, history, agricultural science, investigative reporting, and the poetry of the natural world. Wherever life has roamed, its record is left in the sediment; over centuries, that dead matter is compacted into rock; and in that rock is phosphate--one phosphorus atom bonded to four oxygen atoms--life preserved in death, with all its surging force.
In 1842, when the naturalist John Stevens Henslow, Darwin's beloved botany professor, discovered the potential of that rock as a fertilizer, little did he know his countrymen would soon be grinding up the bones of dead soldiers and mummified Egyptian cats to exploit their phos­phate content. Little did he know he'd spawn a global mining industry that would change our diets, our lifestyles, and the face of the planet.
Lohmann guides us from Henslow's Suffolk, where the phosphate fertilizer industry took root, to Bone Valley in Central Florida, where it has boomed alongside big ag--leaving wreckage like the Piney Point disaster in its wake--to far-flung Nauru, an island stripped of its life force by the ravenous young industry. We sift through the earth's geological layers and eras, speak in depth with experts and locals, and explore our past relationship with sustainable farming--including in seventeenth-century Japan, when one could pay rent with their excrement--before we started wasting just as much phosphate as we mine.
Sui generis, filled with passion and rigorous reporting, White Light invites us to renew our broken relationship not just with the earth but with our own death--and the life it brings after us.

Review Quotes

"White Light tells the history of life through an element's history. It is at once lyrical and exacting, clear-sighted and deeply informed--a beautiful book." --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky

"An effervescent--or I should say phosphorescent--debut from a talented young science writer. Jack Lohmann travels across time and space, from eroding English seasides to lonely Pacific outposts, and from 50-million-year-old fossil beds to modern factory farms, to explore how the humble element phosphorus underpins our world. By the end of the journey, you too will see this often-ignored element in a new light--the white light that underlies life itself." --Steve Brusatte, University of Edinburgh paleontologist and New York Times/Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

"Last week, I had no interest in phosphorus; now, thanks to Jack Lohmann's ground-breaking book, I find life and death--the whole universe--within it. Every sentence in this deeply original work sparkles with astonishing facts, prodigious research, crystal clarity. White Light is a conscience-driven tour de force." --Pico Iyer, author of The Half Known Life

"Lohmann's beautiful book demonstrates that phosphate, a substance we do not think of in everyday life, tells us about our origin, the present and the future. This book reminds us of the meaning of life." --Kohei Saito, author of Slow Down

"In this deft and radiant book, Jack Lohmann has achieved something quite rare: a work that is scientifically precise yet ethically expansive. Lohmann writes with assured wisdom, whether reflecting on Earth's biogeochemical history or on environmental justice. Who knew that a book about phosphorus could generate such profound material and spiritual insights into life, death, human suffering, and planetary flourishing?" --Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence

"A beautiful piece of genuinely literary science writing, very much in the spirit of John McPhee. You can feel the love of nature, and the wonder before nature, pouring out from nearly every page. With expert storytelling, [Lohmann conveys] just how different our natural world, and our modern history of science, would have been in the absence of the light-bearing element from Mendeleev's table." --Justin E. H. Smith, author of The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is

"An eerie exploration of a strange and surprising element, and a plangent warning of a looming environmental crisis that needs our attention. Science writing of the highest order." --Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

"The phosphorus cycle, in Lohmann's treatment, emerges as a hyperobject: an entity that sprawls across space and time, operating on every scale from the microscopic to the planetary, and whose potency brings life but also destruction." --James Vincent, London Review of Books

"A surprisingly riveting look at the role of death, in life, as illustrated via a single element."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A stimulating study." --Publishers Weekly

"Via lyric, literary prose and journalistic storytelling, Lohmann lays bare a hidden ecological tragedy for scientifically curious readers." --Wade Lee-Smith, Library Journal

"Phosphorus is a chemical Swiss Army knife. It is essential for life, a component of cells and bones, the prime part of a matchstick, an agricultural fertilizer, an ingredient in some insecticides, and emanates an eerie glow (phosphorescence) . . . Lohmann's profile of phosphorus, a chemical necessary for life with many different uses, highlights how nature masterfully recycles an indispensable element." --Booklist

"White Light mixes individual stories with global statistics and sweeping history to tell the story of phosphorus, from pollution in Florida to agricultural collapse on the island of Nauru. Jack Lohmann also looks to the future, exploring potential improvements in land output that would support the billions of humans living today, and the billions more to come." --Kathryn Harkup, Times Literary Supplement

"From mining to mummies, White Light details the human relationship with phosphorus and what that might mean for a sustainable farming future." --Food Tank

About the Author

JACK LOHMANN is a writer from Richmond, Virginia. He moved to Mongolia in 2022. This is his first book.

ALICE MAIDEN is an illustrator based in Brooklyn.