Powering Empire
How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization
by On Barak
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Pub Date Mar 24 2020 | Archive Date Jul 16 2020
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Description
The Age of Empire was driven by coal, and the Middle East—as an idea—was made by coal. Coal’s imperial infrastructure presaged the geopolitics of oil that wreaks carnage today, as carbonization threatens our very climate. Powering Empire argues that we cannot promote worldwide decarbonization without first understanding the history of the globalization of carbon energy. How did this black rock come to have such long-lasting power over the world economy?
Focusing on the flow of British carbon energy to the Middle East, On Barak excavates the historic nexus between coal and empire to reveal the political and military motives behind what is conventionally seen as a technological innovation. He provocatively recounts the carbon-intensive entanglements of Western and non-Western powers and reveals unfamiliar resources—such as Islamic risk-aversion and Gandhian vegetarianism—for a climate justice that relies on more diverse and ethical solutions worldwide.
Advance Praise
"In rewriting the entangled histories of coal, Powering Empire recasts the history of the Middle East as well as our understanding of empire and the map of our present predicament. Barak has written a brilliant book."—Timothy Mitchell, author of Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
"An imaginative, timely intervention in debates on the popular but contested idea of the Anthropocene, Barak’s account of coal and the British Empire in the Middle East effectively historicizes many of our contemporary anxieties and concerns. His wide-ranging and impeccable scholarship and his judicious discussion of 'energy transition' in the Middle East will make this book compulsory reading for all historians and students of energy regimes."—Dipesh Chakrabarty, author of The Crises of Civilization: Exploring Global and Planetary Histories
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780520310728 |
| PRICE | $29.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 344 |
