People have lived and  died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to  world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Ultimately, the  history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself.

Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning  author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made  room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and  renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress,  through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I,  Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford.

In Energy,  Rhodes highlights the successes and failures that led to each  breakthrough in energy production; from animal and waterpower to the  steam engine, from internal-combustion to the electric motor. He  addresses how we learned from such challenges, mastered their  transitions, and capitalized on their opportunities. Rhodes also looks  at the current energy landscape, with a focus on how wind energy is  competing for dominance with cast supplies of coal and natural gas. He  also addresses the specter of global warming, and a population hurtling  towards ten billion by 2100.

Human beings have confronted the  problem of how to draw life from raw material since the beginning of  time. Each invention, each discovery, each adaptation brought further  challenges, and through such transformations, we arrived at where we are  today. In Rhodes’s singular style, Energy details how this knowledge of our history can inform our way tomorrow.