Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization

Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization

On Barak
$34.44
Publication Date: March 24th, 2020
Publisher:
University of California Press
ISBN:
9780520310728
Pages:
344
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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.

About the Author

On Barak is a social historian of science and technology in non-Western settings, and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of On Time: Technology and Temporality in Modern Egypt.

Praise for Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization

"Powering Empire is a valuable and ground-breaking work and should be of interest to any scholar working in the fields of the history and culture of the modern Middle East and British Empire."

— Diyâr

"Powering Empire is at its best in illuminating these seeming contradictions that break down the flattening effect of globalization and changing “regimes.” In untangling these interwoven origins of the carbon age, Barak makes the case for thinking about decarbonization as a multidirectional and multifocal process that must involve both material and cultural transformation."

— Isis

"Truly fascinating . . . . Powering Empire is an important work for those wishing to broaden their understanding of the role fossil fuels—notably coal—played and continue to play in politics and daily life. It is written in accessible language and is not weighed down by overly technical information or dry economic analysis. As such, it should be of great interest to those seeking to learn about the history of the Middle East, imperialism, and globalization."

— The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

"The present work by social and cultural historian On Barak is the result of an extremely ambitious research. . . .It is a text that deserves to be read not only for the bibliographical research work done by the author, for the audacious storytelling and some keen observations, but also because it stimulates a timely reflection on the perspectives of contemporary historiography."
— The Journal of European Economic History