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Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives
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Sales rank 620,615
Customers rating (based on 27 reviews)
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Internal Combustion is the compelling tale of corruption and manipulation that subjected the U.S. and the world to an oil addiction that could have been avoided, that was never necessary, and that could be ended not in ten years, not in five years, but today. Edwin Black, award-winning author of IBM and the Holocaust, has mined scores of corporate and governmental archives to assemble thousands of previously uncovered and long-forgotten documents and studies into this dramatic story. Black traces a continuum of rapacious energy cartels and special interests dating back nearly 5,000 years, from wood to coal to oil, and then to the bicycle and electric battery cartels of the 1890s, which created thousands of electric vehicles that plied American streets a century ago. But those noiseless and clean cars were scuttled by petroleum interests, despite the little-known efforts of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford to mass-produce electric cars powered by personal backyard energy stations. Black also documents how General Motors criminally conspired to undermine mass transit in dozens of cities and how Big Oil, Big Corn, and Big Coal have subverted synthetic fuels and other alternatives. He then brings the story full-circle to the present day oil crises, global warming and beyond. Black showcases overlooked compressed-gas, electric and hydrogen cars on the market today, as well as inexpensive all-function home energy units that could eliminate much oil usage. His eye-opening call for a Manhattan Project for immediate energy independence will help energize society to finally take action. Internal Combustion, and its interactive website www.internalcombustionbook.com, will generate a much-needed national debate at a crucial time. It should be read by every citizen who consumes oil -- everyone. Internal Combustion can change everything, not by reinventing the wheel, but by excavating it from where it was buried a century ago. Â
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| Publisher | St. Martin's Press | | Release date | 09/2006 | | Availability | | | Edition | Hardcover |
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 An Important Read despite Flaws
The content of this book is five stars. The poor editing is truly stunning.
If climate change is the danger scientists say it is, the jury is out as to whether or not humans can respond meaningfully to the challenge. The stories in this book make me think not. Human greed is just too powerful.
Jared Diamond tackles that issue on in his work "Collapse". Some societies do respond and save themselves from grave challenges while others do not. "Internal Combustion" is all about private gain over public needs. And as long as corporations control our world our demise is assured. The US Supreme Court just put another nail in the coffin with it's latest decision on giving corporations unlimited access to buying politicians.
"Internal Combustion" makes it plain that public policy issues are not shaped by the facts, the science or the best interests of the public. Money and power will corrupt the process unless reasonable limits are imposed on the process.
I would say that the value of this work is that it presents case studies in the history of American energy and transportation development.
As to was there an industrial conspiracy against Edison and Ford in the development of a cheap electrical automobile, this book does not provide answers to the question that it hints about. Did major US corporations conspire to eliminate public transit in American cities? The answer there is clearer.
These questions are more important in the context of our world than when the events in question transpired. Electric or internal combustion was not as big an issue in 1914. However, an electric car was a more economical means of transportation if it could be made to be competitive with the gas engine. But corporations stood to make more money on internal combustion. Making more money is the recurrent theme in American corporate life. And "supersize" it. That will mean bigger tires, the use of more fuel and more parts? Oh yeah, find a PR angle to explain why this money making approach is in the interests of the customer.
This book should provoke thought about all of these issues.
 SHORT HISTORY OF WHY WE ARE HOOKED ON OIL
There are usually reasons for every addiction , and our addict like demand for oil, has put us in the position to be controlled by countries who dispise us and our way of life.
Mr . Black in this well researched book , illustrates why oil is our drug of choice, overtaking what at one time appeared to be much more regional friendly forms of energy , such as electric , and more recently hydrogen.
The blatant destruction of the electric trains , and the buying - out of
any prospect of the wide-spread use of electric as the source for powering personal vehicles is outlined thoroughly, as part of the reason that we are " energy hostages " to unfriendly forces are laid out in a concise manner.
The shame of the matter is that it is now apparent that those who concieved this plan , were aware of the limited nature of the resource that they had hooked us on.
We are now paying the price, literally , for this near sighted,
plan that looked more to fill the pockets of the creators, rather than to benefit the public.
Read this book , and you will see how we are in a "fix" that was preventable , and could have easily not have occured.
It is the frustration of finding out how close we were to not having it happen that is the
most eye- opening and aggrevating piece of this little known sequence
of events .
Once again Mr. Black discovers the truth , and leaves us to think how different our world would be if the greed for oil had been hampered
years ago.
great story
This book is the best
It starts out with henry Ford to edison, With real fact Based Data
Very little opinion I would recommend This for someone That wants to
Get the Whole story From the beginning , I was surprised to read about
electric cars in the early 1900s.
 Interesting facts, lousy editing
Mr. Black needs a new editor. There are interesting facts presented in an attempt to establish a conspiracy between auto manufacturers, utility companies and, of course, petroleum companies to explain why the United States with 5% of the world's population uses 25% of the world's oil production. The problem is that he never quite identifies a villain, (with the exception of the GM-Firestone, et al. conspiracy to systematically buy up and dismantle local trolley systems), nor the means used to addict the world on oil.
He starts off describing a fire of unknown origin at Thomas Edison's battery works. He says the fire spread quickly and destroyed about a dozen supposedly fireproof concrete buildings which weren't insured because they were supposedly fireproof. He stops there without ever discussing whether the fire actually destroyed Edison's research, bankrupted his company, or otherwise caused him to abandon the development of a better battery. The reader is left to assume that Edison's failure to develop his battery allowed internal combustion engines to dominate the auto and bus industries.
Mr. Black briefly mentions that Edison looked into windmills as a potential source of power generation to charge his batteries which would not only power a car, but also could be used to power all sorts of electronic gadgetry in his vision of the house of tomorrow. Again, he leaves it to the reader to speculate that the fire at Edison's facilities, plus the machinations of a lead-based battery cabal, prevented the rise of distributed power generation (i.e. every household generating its own power requirements via windmills or PV) allowed utility companies that relied on central generation plants based on oil, coal and gas to take primacy in our modern industrial society, and concurrently stunted the development of alternative energy sources.
The most difficult part of the read is not the presentation of the facts, but that it is repetitive. Whole paragraphs presented in one section of the book are repeated almost verbatim in other parts, along with the same footnoted reference, although the format isn't always consistent. Just sloppy.
The bottom line is that, then as now, certain persons with control of capital and resources, are more concerned with their own short term profit rather than the long term good of humanity. Even Mr Black admits that the GM-Firestone-Big Oil conspirators, while clearly motivated by the prospect of increasing demand for gas, cars and tires, operated by buying up troubled local trolley companies. They then shut them down rather than investing in new equipment (some of it 20 or 30 years beyond their expected useful life) or expanding service. He concedes that the cost of upgrading electric rails systems was higher than converting them to internal combustion engine buses. However, the way our modern capitalism works, including the way our executives are compensated, the fact is that corporations are encouraged to take the short view and avoid investing for the long term.
As for the book, borrow it from the library. It's not a must-have simply because of the poor writing and editing. The book jacket indicates that this is Mr. Black's 3rd book in as many years. It certainly looks like he should have taken some more time with this one.
The truth
I thinked before the same way about the great problem is the oil for the world under the hands of persons who's only god is the money, no matter millions death by pollution and poverty.
Ray
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