The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude

"A robustly researched and smoothly written overview of the many challenges confronting our devotion to fossil fuels" from the author of Tar Sands (Quill & Quire).

Ancient civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities. Nineteenth-century slaveholders viewed critics as hostilely as oil companies and governments now regard environmentalists. Yet the abolition movement had an invisible ally: coal and oil. As the ...