Will Wiles
Corrode to Hell
Rust: The Longest War
By Jonathan Waldman
Simon & Schuster 288pp £16.99
The earliest documented reference to rust is by a Roman general fighting on the Blue Nile two thousand years ago. He complained that corroded parts were making his catapults more dangerous to his own men than to the enemy. The natural philosopher Pliny the Elder called rust ferrum corrumpitur, or ‘spoiled iron’, describing it as the price nature extracted for the strength of metal tools and weapons, ‘making nothing in the world more mortal than that which is most hostile to mortality’.
Jonathan Waldman, in this odd, lively book about corrosion, paints it as the spectre haunting civilisation, the unstoppable, undying foe of progress: ‘Rust represents the disordering of the modern.’ Annually it costs the United States more than all natural disasters combined, a total of about 3 per cent of its GDP, or $1,500 per person. It brings down bridges and aircraft, corrupts concrete, blows up water heaters and disables fire sprinklers. Its power to undo man’s doings is biblically proverbial: ‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal,’ reads Matthew 6:19.
One way or another, sooner or later, rust is going to win: it’s what we get for enjoying so much oxygen in the air and water. Only a handful of rare earth metals do not corrode – strictly speaking ‘rusting’ happens only to iron, but Waldman happily uses it to
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm