Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks--a Cool History of a Hot Commodity

The unexpected and unexplored ways that ice has transformed a nationfrom the foods Americans eat, to the sports they play, to the way they live todayand 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. Most refrigerators owned by Americans feature automatic ice machines. Ice on-demand has so revolutionized modern life that its easy to forget that it wasnt always this wayand 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 the nations first-ever indoor ice rink, to how delicacies like ice creams and iced tea revolutionized our palates, to the ubiquitous ice machine in every motel across the US. But Ice doesnt end in the past. Brady also explores the surprising present-day uses of ice in sports, medicine, and sustainable energyincluding cutting-edge cryotherapy breast-cancer treatments and new refrigerator technologies that may prove to be more energy efficientunderscoring how precious this commodity is, especially in an age of climate change.