Del 0 - Exploring World History

To Have and Have Not

Energy in World History

Inbunden, Engelska, 2022

579 kr

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A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic TitleWritten by a leading scholar, this essential introduction to the history of energy traces one of humans’ most basic ecological interactions: energy exchange. From fire to agriculture, water wheels to electric dynamos, the rise in intensity led humans to define a new “high energy” existence during the twentieth century. Industrialization and consumption increased the connection between energy and economic and political power, clarifying its importance throughout the world wars and into the Cold War. To Have and Have Not reveals a world in which energy supply now defines global standing, starkly revealing the connection between history and current events that perfectly situates our modern conundrum of a future without fossil fuels. Climate change and the supply of sustainable energy now permeates our modern policy making as we bear witness to the waning years of energy borrowed from the distant past. Brian Black argues that our history of growing energy reliance and past transitions is essential context for understanding our inevitable shift to cleaner energy. Placing this story within the current, rapidly changing historical discourse, this book is timely and persuasive as it lays out our current transition from fossil fuels.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2022-05-15
Mått161 x 236 x 25 mm
Vikt585 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieExploring World History
Antal sidor310
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781538105030
UtmärkelserWinner of Outstanding Academic Title 2023

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PrologueIntroduction: The Urgency of Our Relationship with Energy PART I: Energy Exchange in the Biological Old Regime (before 1400)1. Energy in the Human PastTransitioning by the Numbers: Biological Old RegimePART II: Industrialization and the Great Reversal (1400–1920)2. Colonialism, Mercantilism, and EmpireTransitioning by the Numbers: Industrialization3. Fossil Fuels and the Transformation of Human Work4. Energizing Everyday Human LifePART III: Energy Broadens the Gap (1900–2000)5. Energy and National Security6. Energy Technology and Empire in the Cold War EraTransitioning by the Numbers: High-Energy Existence7. The Energy Gap Takes ShapePART IV: Integrating Sustainability (2000–2022)Transitioning by the Numbers: Considering Sustainable Energy8. Energy Transitions and the Culture of SustainabilityEpilogue: Divining Our Energy Future: Game Over or Game On?Index

Humans cannot survive without extracting energy from the environment. Black accompanies readers on a four-part journey that identifies and describes the physical and social processes connected with exploiting various resource types in the succession of energy exchange economies of societies past and present…. Black's accessible narrative clearly explains the engineering and societal entailments of each scenario. As Black tells it, the greatest social and physical transformations occurred with the uptake of coal and oil. Black poses an inconvenient question with regard to the future: "Game over or game on?" is this author's way of "divining our energy future" in an epilogue that begins "Our earthly disaster unfolds in real time, attacking our planet's infrastructure often out of human sight or perception" (p. 273). Comparing today's atmospheric CO2 levels with Pleistocene levels (revealed by ice core sampling data), Black envisions a new stage of industrialization to enable a sustainable energy exchange regime capable of supporting continued human existence on planet Earth. Highly recommended. All readers.