Author: Jack Lohmann

The author discusses his recently published book, "White Light: The Elemental Role of Phosphorus in Our Cells, in Our Food, and in Our World."

From the publisher:

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.

"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.

Jack Lohmann is a writer from Richmond, Virginia. "White Light" is his first book.

This event is co-sponsored by the library, the Princeton Environmental Film Festival and Labyrinth Books.

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