In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the citizens of Great Britain faced what seemed to be a bleak energy future. Commentators argued that the country’s most important energy resource—coal—was destined to run out within a generation or so. At the same time, they argued that there was no viable alternative to coal. Two primary solutions to Britain’s perceived energy crunch were therefore offered: Military strategists were urged to undertake expeditions to seize control of coal reserves in foreign lands, and companies were urged to drive their workers harder to increase domestic production of the resource. But...

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, communities across the world relied on resources like wood, wind, and water for most of their energy needs. Only about 10 percent of the commercial energy used in 1800 came from coal. Within a matter of decades, however, a massive growth in coal mining had taken place. Coal fueled profound transformations in industries across Europe and North America, but it also helped propel new waves of colonial conquest and global trade. In fact, during the nineteenth century coal allowed the capitalist world-economy to undergo a process of expansion that fundamentally refashioned societies all...

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the expansion of the coal system was driven mainly by the interacting dynamics of geopolitical and commercial competition. The industrialization of warfare and colonial conquest spurred state authorities in Western Europe, North America, and certain other regions to support the expansion of coal-related sectors. At the same time, private companies found it profitable to satisfy the demand for coal that was coming from military, industrial, and urban sectors in advanced economies. As a result of these mutually beneficial cycles, the global energy shift toward coal was remarkably rapid and farreaching.

From the perspective...

In the first decade of the twentieth century, the world appeared to be entering a period of prosperity fueled in part by an unprecedented abundance of energy resources. Even though conflicts between coal mine owners and workers often swept through the world’s main mining regions, coal production continued to spread steadily into new regions of the world. At the same time, the incorporation of the new resources of oil and hydroelectricity significantly increased the power available to citizens in the developed regions of the world. Up through 1913, in short, the capitalist world-economy appeared capable of generating almost continual expansionss...

At the end of the Second World War, the global energy system began a new period of growth that was more rapid than any ever before witnessed in human history. In fact, between 1946 and 1973 the world consumed more commercial energy than had been used in the entire period from 1800 to 1945. While the world consumed around 53 billion tons of oil equivalent of energy in the 1800–1945 period, over 84 billion tons of oil equivalent were used in the twenty-seven years that followed the war.

This postwar boom involved the exploitation of a variety of energy...

While the two and a half decades following the end of the Second World War were years of unparalleled growth in world energy industries, the decade of the 1970s ushered in a new era of crisis. Turbulence rippled through the international oil system, while accidents in nuclear power plants brought to light dangers in this emerging energy technology. Evidence also began to mount that the pollution generated by conventional energy systems was having detrimental impacts on the environment, and so resistance to expansions in energy projects began to mount. By the end of the twentieth century, it had become clear...

As the world begins the twenty-first century, the long-term viability of the global energy system is increasingly being called into question. This era’s most important energy industry, based on oil, is being repeatedly wracked by major security crises. Indeed, the cycle of terrorist attacks and counterattacks that has gripped Afghanistan and Iraq—and is echoed in Israel and the Occupied Territories—brings a new level of danger to the world’s most prolific oil-producing regions. Moreover, revelations that nuclear technologies and materials are proliferating through state and nonstate channels reveal the inherent dangers of this energy system, especially in an era...