Description
Book SynopsisUnderstanding the complex history of US fossil fuel use can help us build a sustainable future. In Hydrocarbon Nation, Thor Hogan looks at how four technological revolutionsindustrial, agricultural, transportation, and electrificationdrew upon the enormous hydrocarbon wealth of the United States, transforming the young country into a nation with unparalleled economic and military potential. Each of these advances engendered new government policies aimed at strengthening national and economic security. The result was unprecedented energy security and the creation of a nation nearly impervious to outside threats. However, when this position weakened in the decades after the peaking of domestic conventional oil supplies in 1970, the American political and economic systems were severely debilitated. At the same time, climate change was becoming a major concern. Fossil fuels created the modern world, yet burning them created a climate crisis. Hogan argues that everyday Americans and polic
Trade Review"Hogan... writes passionately of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels to solve the looming climate crisis... By not implicitly demonizing hydrocarbons,
Hydrocarbon Nation is much more persuasive... Bracing and opinionated,
Hydrocarbon Nation is a worthwhile exploration backward and forward.
—Ray Bert,
Civil EngineeringHogan gives us plenty to think about. His work knitting together political cycles with energy revolutions (that span industry, agriculture, transportation, and electrification, or what he calls the innate revolutions) is thought provoking. It produces a creative narrative that ties energy history to banking policy, wealth and income inequality, international diplomacy, environmental health, and other topics over two centuries . . .
Hydrocarbon Nation provides a useful reflection on how political developments from Hamiltonianism to Trumpism have something elemental to do with energy infrastructure.
—Bob Johnson, National University,
Journal of American HistoryTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Prologue
Introduction
Part I
1. Steam, National Security, and the First Political Age
2. Coal, Macroeconomic Security, and the Second Political Age
3. Oil, Microeconomic Security, and the Third Political Age
Part II
4. Energy Insecurity and the American Decline
5. Gas and National Renewal in the Fourth Political Age
6. Climate Security and a Sustainability Revolution
Epilogue
Notes
Index
