Leigh Kimmel’s Reviews > Energy and Civilization: A History > Status Update

Discussion of customary and metric measurements, how scientific measurements relate to one another, and what they mean in practical terms. Helpful for some of the more technical aspects of the discussion of energy use in various civilizations.

Cautions on the dangers of determinism, and of treating everything as pure chance.

A meditation on choices and how many one "ought" to have. I'm wondering if the author actually believes this stuff, or if he was told by the editor that he had to put it in to get published. He'd been so good and on point right until this.

How energy availability has reshaped civilization, from very primitive hunter-gatherers dependent entirely upon their own muscle power to modern industrial civilization using a wealth of carbon from earlier aeons to fuel cities in which night becomes day. And the human tendency to excess, particularly in public spectacle and riotous living.

Given that modern warfare requires enormous expenditures of energy, is it true that wars are being fought for oil? Examining several possibilities, from the World Wars (the Axis really, really wanted access to some important oilfields) to the Persian Gulf wars of 1991 and 2003 (if the US was so interested in the oil, why didn't they occupy Iraq and take control of the oilfields, rather than returning them to Iraq)?

The increased destructiveness of modern weapons, as they release more and more energy. The power to level whole cities and slaughter or maim their populace -- even as the dependence of such weapons upon industrial production capacity means that the "tail" goes all the way back to the civilian population who work in the munitions factories, the refineries, etc.

The energy release of chemical vs nuclear explosives. The Arms Race of the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction as deterance -- which assumes that both sides are rational actors. The Soviets were atheists -- but the Iranian theocracy believes they must immenentize the eschaton, so use of nukes might be a rational decision in that theological framework.

The history of explosives, and the energy they release

The kinetic energy of arrows vs bullets vs rockets

Energy and weapons development -- and the problem of not just training, but building for the last war. Massed tank formations aren't so useful against terrorists who melt into the population.