Energy and Civilization

Smil argues that energy is the only universal currency, and that nothing whatever gets done without it. The book traces the conversion of energy from the terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to the erosive work of raindrops, and grounds life on Earth in the photosynthetic capture of solar energy as plant biomass. Humans, Smil contends, are the only species that systematically harnesses energies outside their own bodies, using intellect and an enormous variety of artefacts ranging from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. On that basis he offers a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, moving from pre-agricultural foraging groups through settled agriculture to today's fossil fuel driven civilisation. His central claim is that the transition to fossil fuels was epochal and affected everything at once, agriculture, industry, transport, weapons, communication, economics, urbanisation, quality of life, politics and the environment. The treatment is deliberately panoramic and interdisciplinary rather than narrowly technical. The book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's earlier Energy in World History, reworked to reflect developments in energy studies over the two decades that followed.

Written from the catalogue listing at Blackwell's reproducing the MIT Press publisher's synopsis.

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