Ice

Description

The unexpected and unexplored ways that ice has transformed a nation—from the foods Americans eat, to the sports they play, to the way they live today—and what its future might look like on a swiftly warming planet.

Ice is everywhere: in gas stations, in restaurants, in hospitals, in our homes. Americans think nothing of dropping a few ice cubes into tall glasses of tea to ward off the heat of a hot summer day. When children bruise their arms or fall sick with fevers, parents wrap ice in dishtowels and press them tenderly to their skin. Nearly half of all refrigerators owned by Americans feature automatic ice machines. Ice-on-demand has so revolutionized modern life that it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way…and to overlook what aspects of society might just melt away as the planet warms.

In Ice, journalist and historian Amy Brady shares the strange and storied two-hundred-year-old history of ice in America: from the introduction of mixed-drinks “on the rocks,” to P. T. Barnum’s first-ever indoor ice rink, to how delicacies like iced custard and iced tea revolutionized our palettes, to the ubiquitous ice machine in every motel across the U.S. But Ice doesn’t end in the past. Brady also explores the surprising, present-day uses of ice in sports, medicine, and sustainable energy—including cutting-edge cryotherapy breast-cancer treatments and the promise of a substance called “flammable ice” that may prove to be a cleaner fuel source—underscoring how precious this commodity is, especially in an age of climate change.Amy Brady is the Executive Director of Orion magazine and co-editor of The World As We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate. Brady has published widely on how the climate crisis continues to influence art and culture and has made appearances on the BBC, NPR, and PBS. She holds a PhD in literature and American Studies and has won writing and research awards from the National Science Foundation, the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, and the Library of Congress. 
 US