Free (Kindle/ePub) Eiderdown [Award-Win Trade Goods Cultural Economic History Essay]

[ATDrake]

Eiderdown by Edward Poslett is his current-retrospective essay on the cultural and economic history of Exactly What It Says In The Title, which was an important luxury trade good for several centuries right down to this day, where it still forms a major part of the export economy of Iceland (to be fair, they don't have all that much available to export, and I say this as someone who considers Iceland my 2nd favourite country), free courtesy of publisher Random House's Vintage Digital imprint.

This is the winner of the 3rd annual essay prize jointly offered by The Bodley Head (Wikipedia, formerly a longstanding independent publishing house now absorbed into a division of Random House UK) and the Financial Times (Wikipedia), and you can read a bit more about its particular win and some of the judging officials' comments on why it was their top pick over here in their announcement newspiece.

Currently free to pre-order, slated for January 20th @ Amazon (available to Canadians & in the UK) & Google Play (available to Canadians).

Apparently there may be pictures involved, since this is listed with a rather large filesize for its estimated length, so you may prefer to set it not to go directly to your device if you've got some kind of 3G dataplan limit or horribly spotty connection coverage.

And this has been the selected 3rd (non-repeat) free ebook thread of the day.

Because as I keep telling you, I have this inordinate fondness for cultures which produce dragon boats.

And when you combine it with cultural/political history-of stuff which I also have an inordinate fondness for, especially in a quasi-academic setting, then . <-- I don't actually dance anywhere near this well IRL.

Enjoy!

Description
Over the centuries eiderdown has been coveted by the Vikings, Russian tsars and medieval tax collectors who accepted it as revenue. The plumage of a fat sea duck, eiderdown – treasured for its extraordinary lightness and insulation – now joins cocaine as an instrument of globalisation and commodity of the super-rich.

In this revelatory essay, Edward Posnett travels to the Westfjords region of Iceland to explore the fragile relationship between Icelanders and the duck. Eiderdown harvesting began with the arrival of Norse settlers in the 9th century, and it is now stuffed into pillows, duvets and clothing which sell for thousands of pounds in Japan, China, Germany and Russia. What might at first appear an idyllic pastime becomes a story of compromise and exploitation. Posnett’s finely spun prose and his fascinating encounters open up this seldom seen trade, one which hangs in the balance.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

. . . .
was an important luxury trade good for several centuries right down to this day, where it still forms a major part of the export economy of Iceland (to be fair, they don't have all that much available to export, and I say this as someone who considers Iceland my 2nd favourite country)
. . . .

Sure, Iceland has a lot to export. There's volcanic ash, lava rock, photos of volcanoes . . . well, you get the idea. ha! Not a put-down, just a remark about how many volcanoes are there. Most people don't realize.

On a serious note, Alcoa (I think it is) built a huge aluminum processing plant of some kind there in recent times. If I remember correctly what was said in this article that I was reading recently, Alcoa first imports aluminum ore to this plant, then processes it, and finally exports it, and still makes money there, because of some economic advantage that Iceland has. Maybe it's a sign of good things to come for the export side of Iceland's economy.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Sure, Iceland has a lot to export. There's volcanic ash, lava rock, photos of volcanoes . . . well, you get the idea. ha! Not a put-down, just a remark about how many volcanoes are there. Most people don't realize.

Well, most people don't do science reading (or even basic learning, sadly) and therefore never learn that it's on a ridge between two continental plates*.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

On a serious note, Alcoa (I think it is) built a huge aluminum processing plant of some kind there in recent times. If I remember correctly what was said in this article that I was reading recently, Alcoa first imports aluminum ore to this plant, then processes it, and finally exports it, and still makes money there, because of some economic advantage that Iceland has.

They have really cheap electricity because of the geothermal energy due to being located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, which makes it more cost-efficient to process aluminum (a very energy-intensive process, apparently) there. Similarly, we had a town set up in BC during the 50s for pretty much the same reasons due to having cheap hydro.

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Maybe it's a sign of good things to come for the export side of Iceland's economy.

It certainly makes a change from the traditional exports of eiderdown, codfish, Icelandic sweaters and horses, and pop musicians, although there've been protests about Alcoa's operations, which are viewed as environmentally unfriendly for the locals (notably from Björk, one of the aforementioned pop musician exports).

* Obligatory Scandinavia and the World cartoon about Iceland's unholy power over lava: Iceland ain't right

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

. . . .
They have really cheap electricity because of the geothermal energy due to being located on the Mid-Atlantic ridge, which makes it more cost-efficient to process aluminum (a very energy-intensive process, apparently) there. Similarly, we had a town set up in BC during the 50s for pretty much the same reasons due to having cheap hydro.
. . . .

If memory serves me correctly, this aluminum plant uses all, or almost all, hydro. Another aspect of Iceland besides its volcanism (which I did not know beforehand, but it makes sense given its snow and ice) is that it has a huge amount of surface water in rivers, lakes, etc. Alcoa, or somebody, built a dam with a hydroelectric plant on one of those rivers and uses the electricity produced from it for their aluminum plant.

Speaking of environmentalists, radical environmentalists (I'm not against environmentalists--I consider myself an environmentalist, though not a radical one) howled about the construction of this dam, but lost.

One thing that I read in this article about geothermal energy was especially interesting to me. That is that most homes in Iceland use geothermal energy for heat, because the volcanism is so extensive there. Of course, that energy is basically free. It would be nice not to have a heating bill . . . .

I think that the article was in a National Geographic. Probably one several years old.

[cromag]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Sure, Iceland has a lot to export. There's volcanic ash, lava rock, photos of volcanoes . . . well, you get the idea. ha! Not a put-down, just a remark about how many volcanoes are there. Most people don't realize.

...

Seriously? No mention of Bjork?!