Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies

by Robert L. Bradley Jr.

The oil industry in the United States has been the subject of innumerable histories. But books on the development of the natural gas industry and the electricity industry in the U.S. are scarce. Edison to Enron is a readable flowing history of two of America's largest and most colorful industries. It begins with the story of Samuel Insull, a poor boy from England, who started his career as Thomas Edison's right-hand man, then went on his own and became one of America's top industrialists. But when Insull's General Electric's energy empire collapsed during the Great Depression, the hitherto Great Man was denounced and prosecuted and died a pauper. Against that backdrop, the book introduces Ken Lay, a poor boy from Missouri who began his career as an aide to the head of Humble oil, now part of Exxon Mobil. Lay went on to become a Washington bureaucrat and energy regulator and then became the wunderkind of the natural gas industry in the 1980s with Enron. To connect the lives of these two energy giants, Edison to Enron takes the reader through the flamboyant history of the American energy industry, from Texas wildcatters to the great pipeline builders to the Washington wheeler-dealers. From the Reviews... "This scholarly work fills in much missing history about two of America's most important industries, electricity and natural gas."
― Joseph A. Pratt , NEH-Cullen Professor of History and Business, University of Houston "... a remarkable book on the political inner workings of the U.S. energy industry."
― Robert Peltier , PE, Editor-in-Chief, POWER Magazine "This is a powerful story, brilliantly told."
― Forrest McDonald , Historian

Genres: Economics, History, Politics

608 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2011

Reviews

[Lester Cockram · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author put a lot time and research into this book including a lot of nice photos. My first love is electrical engineering even though I spent my entire career in natural gas including 16 years with the Big E which was the entire life of the company. A great book especially if you were one of Enrons 20,000 employees.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edison to Enron provides a look at the history of the energy industry in the United States and Canada broken up into three parts. This was originally written as three smaller books and as such there is not really any continuity between the three sections to tie them together. The first section on Edison and Samuel Insull was the most interesting and detailed of the books. It covered the race for AC and DC and the plan to electrify the United States. It showcased Insull’s plan of electrifying rural America and proving that it was possible. Government regulation and technical components of early electric are also covered in exacting detail.

Book 2 looks at the natural gas industry and early days of the oil industry also going very technical and looking at the idea of political capitalism. I found this part to be the driest and although full of good information just not my area of interest. Book 3 focused on Enron and Ken Lay. The author having been a confidant of Ken Lay had much to say about the management style and how Ken Lay built the company. The fall of the company was not really covered well and there are better books out there for those looking for that side of the story.

Overall if you are looking for a book on energy markets this is not a bad place to start but no you will need to go through a lot of technical reading. For those interested in how Enron got its start you can get a great deal of information here. Due to the disorganization of the three books I am going with three starts since the information is so good.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting history on the development of the electric grid and natural gas markets (mostly concentrating on Texas and the Gulf), but I found his editorialization of virtue and the pristine perfection of a free market rather grating and distracting from the historical accounts.

That being said there is a lot of good stuff in this book and it is very informative when it comes to explaining how the electric industry developed (both politically and technologically) and how the natural gas industry grew from a waste gas from oil fields that was flared at the site to a very crucial part of America's energy sector.

If you can handle the free market evangelicalism that Bradley adds in too liberally and want to further your understanding of the electric and gas sectors, then this book is for you.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would have preferred more of the history of the technology, but instead this was a history of the business deals of the electric and gas industries. However, the author's intent was to document and make clear the destructiveness of business/government interactions (which he calls "political capitalism" but which is more correctly called the "mixed economy") and this was well done. Will look forward to volume 3.

[Mattias Svensson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting personal portrait of Samuell Insull and a good read on the growth of energy markets in America. Waiting for the third and final book on the subject.

[Ben]

rec'd by Tyler Cowen