As humans have sought to live and develop the North American continent, energy from Earth’s basic elements has served as the raw material for living. The volume examines how the search, harvest, and use of energy have shaped human history, from colonial empire-building to contemporary debates on sustainability and climate change.
Taking North America as its focus, this book offers a comprehensive exploration of humanity’s evolving relationship with energy.
As humans have sought to live and develop the North American continent, energy from Earth’s basic elements has served as the raw material for living. Through its chronological approach and critical case studies, the volume examines how the search, harvest, and use of energy have shaped human history, from colonial empire-building to contemporary debates on sustainability and climate change. By analyzing diverse energy sources including sail power, coal, crude oil, wind, solar, electricity, and nuclear power, the book reveals how industrialization transformed energy consumption and demand, driving political, social, and environmental change. It connects energy history to major political and environmental themes, such as water politics, post-1990s Alberta pipeline debates, the war in Ukraine, and climate change, highlighting how energy has been both a unifying force and a source of division amongst diverse peoples, shaping global power dynamics and regional histories.
Designed for students of environmental history and energy studies, this text synthesizes this important history whilst offering insights into the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century.
Introduction PART I: SIMPLE EXCHANGES: PRIME MOVERS AND HISTORY
1.
Hunting Defines Early Human Life throughout North America
2. Tenochtitlan
Agriculture Manages Limited Water
3. Wind Powers the Varied Economic
Advancement of Mercantilism on the Atlantic
4. Lowell, Massachusetts Models a
Water-Powered Future
5. Erie Canal Organizes Early Commerce through New York
PART II: MINING SUNRAYS FROM THE PAST: COAL AND INDUSTRIALIZATION
6.
Advancing Coal Mining in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania
7. Using Coal to Span the
Continent with Rails at Promonotory Point, Utah
8. Binding Industry into Iron
and Steel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
9. Industrializing Meat in Chicago,
Illinois and the West
10. Spindletop, Texas Unleashes Massive Supplies of
Petroleum PART III: EXPANSIVE POWER ALTERS HUMAN LIFE
11. Turning on Toronto,
Canada with Hydroelectric Power
12. America's 1919 Convoy: A Catalyst for
Energy Transition Spans the U.S
13. Re-wiring Human Culture with Electricity
at Coney Island, New York
14. Levittown, New York Models Conspicuous
Consumption
15. Petroleum Pursuit in Veracruz, Mexico Fuels Environmental
Justice Disputes PART IV: WARRING FOR AND WITH ENERGY
16. Alberta's Hillcrest
Colliery Disaster and Energy Expansion in World War I
17. World War II
Establishes Critical Nature of Energy Infrastructure in American South
18.
Developing Navajo Uranium in Arizona to Support the Nuclear Age
19. Glimpsing
the Hydroelectric Future at the Border of Northwest U.S. and Canada Leads to
Cooperation at the Border PART V: FACTORING SCARCITY AND EXTREME MEASURES
WITH A NEW ENERGY ETHIC
20. A New Energy Future Emerges at the Choctaw
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, LA and in ANWR
21. Spills in the Gulf of Mexico
and Alaska Galvanize Environmental Opposition
22. Alberta Tar Sands Spark
Debate over Pipeline and Climate Change
23. Does Fracking for Natural Gas
Boom Continue in Veracruz, Mexico?
24. Offshore Wind Harvests the Energy
Future in Virginia Beach, VirginiaMaybe
25. Energy Transition Brings Options
to Greensburg, Kansas Epilogue: Our Energy Transition
Brian C. Black is Distinguished Professor of History and Environmental Studies at Penn State Altoona. Recognized as a global expert on energy and petroleum history, he is the author of more than a dozen books, which include Petrolia: The Landscape of America's First Oil Boom, Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History, and To Have and Have Not: Energy in World History. He is also the founding editor of the Energy and Society book series with West Virginia University Press. His writing on energy has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Conversation, The National Interest, and The New York Times. Most recently, his book Ikes Road Trip: How Eisenhowers 1919 Convoy Paved the Way for the Roads We Travel appeared in 2024.
