This important book tells the sweeping story of energy, tracing patterns of energy use in human history. Contextualizing global history through the lens of the Anthropocene, Brian Black traces the eras of industrialization, concluding with our current transition within the reality of climate change. Written by a leading scholar, this book is an essential contribution to environmental history and the rapidly emerging field of energy history.
Brian C. Black is professor of history and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona.
Follow the evolving relationship between humans and energy from the industrial revolution to climate change and the future of renewable resources.
Reviews/Endorsements: [Reviews for his last book, Crude Reality: This engaging and thought-provoking book directs readers' attention to the vital role that petroleum occupies in today's global economy and geopolitical arena. Brian C. Black has done a masterful job of explaining a complex topic. . . . His conclusions are hard to ignore; the global society depends on fossil fuels at a time when the world's peak production of petroleum has likely already occurred. . . . Essential." -Choice "Stands out . . . for Black's skillful incorporation of environmental and cultural history into the more standard narratives focusing on the geopolitics of state and corporate development of global oil resources. . . . Black also makes an important and highly original . . . contribution by analyzing oil itself as a 'critical actor, capable of shaping an entire way of life.' . . . Regardless of precisely how much oil may be left, though, Black's insightful book demonstrates that other 'crude realities' like environmental damage and global warming will likely favor those nations that move beyond oil and pioneer the cleaner alternative energy technologies of the future." -Journal of World History "Black . . . has made a most valuable contribution with this long history of oil from the classical world until today. The work is informative and useful, with a quantity of details rarely to be found in a single work. . . . The book is well written and always clear and easy to understand. It [makes] for worthwhile, fruitful reading enriched by many good photos." -Global Environmental Politics "Not since Daniel Yergin's book, The Prize, has there been a synthetic account that grapples so thoroughly with the transformative effect of oil in world history. . . . Black . . . [provides] a . . . more condensed and readable account with a bolder and clearer analytical framework that offers an accessible entree to the subject for non-experts of energy history and for scholars alike. . . . Black crosses national borders and moves swiftly over 250 years of industry development to present a story in which oil stars initially as 'black goo' but transforms over time with the aid of human accomplices into a powerful actor that drastically alters the world's climate." -Environmental History
