The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: Aug 17, 2012
Language: eng
Number of pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9781553659792
Description: By the winner of the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. 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 world's most versatile workers, fossil fuels replenished slavery's ranks with combustion engines and other labor-saving tools. Since then, cheap oil has transformed politics, economics, science, agriculture, and ...