Energy

December 1, 2017

Waterpower, the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, and today's renewable alternatives: Pulitzer Prize winner Rhodes moves from Queen Elizabeth I to Benjamin Franklin to Henry Ford and toward a globally warmed future as he shows us how energy has shaped our history.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2018
From the Pulitzer and National Book Award winner, a magisterial history of "how human beings...[have] confronted the deeply human problem of how to draw life from the raw materials of the world."The modern world consumes gargantuan quantities of energy, a process made possible by the Industrial Revolution that began 300 years ago. In this latest, prolific veteran journalist and historian Rhodes (Hell and Good Company: The Spanish Civil War and the World it Made, 2015, etc.) casts his expert eye on the subject. The breakout century for energy was the 18th, its birthplace Britain, and its basis coal, a more concentrated source of power than wood, increasingly cheap, and--no secret at the time--a source of smoke far more irritating than that of wood. Energy's breakout technology was the steam engine. After the traditional nod to the Greeks, the author delivers a lucid but not dumbed-down explanation of how it works, from the first, clunky Newcomen engine suitable only for raising water from mines to James Watt's spectacular improvements, which made steam engines the dominant power source until around 1900, when the steam turbine, electric motor, and internal combustion engine took over. Invention accelerated after 1800 when Watt's patents (ironically a drag on progress) expired, and Rhodes takes readers on an exhilarating ride through the following two centuries, mixing narratives about the new sources of energy (electricity, oil, natural gas, the sun, and the atom) and the marvels that they made possible. He devotes entire chapters to their downsides (smog, radiation, toxic waste) but shows little sympathy for anti-technology activists. Humans are problem-solvers, he maintains, and the same genius that produced technological wonders will solve the problems that accompany them--although his optimism flags in the face of global warming.Calling this a classic like Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987) may be slightly premature, but it's definitely a tour de force of popular science, which is no surprise from this author.

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June 4, 2018
Pulitzer- and National Book Award–winner Rhodes (The Making of the Atom Bomb) offers a sweeping history of the diverse sources of energy—from wood to wind—in all its miraculous, destructive glory. Rhodes delivers brilliantly on the inner workings of steam engines and reactors, and his lively narrative takes readers on thrilling side trips. In Great Barrington, Vt., in 1886, 27-year-old inventor William Stanley Jr. discovers how to apply alternating current to long-distance transmission, bringing the miracle of light to the joyous town. In Los Angeles in the mid-20th century, no one knows what’s causing the horrific smog until a Dutch organic chemist, Arie Haagen-Smit, identifies L.A.’s real problem: a half-million cars burning 12,000 gallons of gasoline daily. Rhodes includes lesser-known footnotes to the energy saga: the gunpowder engine; wagons propelled by sails; fish heads, whose phosphorescence provided a man “light by which to read his pocket watch”; and the 1679 invention of the pressure cooker, paving the way for the steam engine. Rhodes firmly backs nuclear power as “the most promising single energy source available to cope with 21st-century energy challenges.” His fascinating tale will delight technology wonks and particularly appeal to inventors and discoverers.