AS: University of British Columbia Press is about to publish a new book on the history of the bauxite industry.
As the key component in aluminium production, bauxite became one of the most important minerals of the last one hundred years. But around the world its effects on people and economies varied broadly — for some it meant jobs, progress, or a political advantage over rival nations, but for many others, it meant exploitation, pollution, or the destruction of a way of life.
Aluminium Ore explores the often overlooked history of bauxite in the twentieth century, and in doing so examines the social, political, and economic forces that shaped the time. Its development became a strategic industry during the First World War, and then the subject of international struggle for dominance during the Second World War. Yet in post-war years it was globalization, not military conquest, that expanded global value chains. The extraction of bauxite — a mineral found mostly in the developing world — was made profitable by the growth of multinational corporations and the spread of globalization, leaving behind a troubled cultural and environmental legacy.
In this wide-ranging collection, scholars from around the world consider multiple perspectives on this history — from Guinea to Nazi Germany to Jamaica — all while examining the central place of one commodity in a time of change.
Robin S. Gendron is an associate professor in the Department of History at Nipissing University.
Mats Ingulstad is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History and Classical Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.