-
Energy
- A Human History
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $27.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
- By: Gwyneth Cravens
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the constant threat of oil shortages facing us and wanting to educate herself about possible alternatives, Gwyneth Cravens skeptically sets out to find for herself the truth about nuclear energy. Her conclusion: It is a totally viable and practical solution to global warming. She enlists the help of Rip Anderson, a leading scientist in the field of risk assessment, and with his tutelage, she travels the country, visiting uranium mines, enrichment centers, reactors, and waste sites.
-
-
Debunking Nuclear Superstition
- By Doug on 09-11-12
By: Gwyneth Cravens
-
Dark Sun
- The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Richard Rhodes
- Length: 6 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Rhodes' landmark history of the atomic bomb won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now, in this majestic new masterpiece of history, science, and politics, he tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made, and traces the path by which this supreme artifact of 20th-century technology became the defining issue of the Cold War.
-
-
Abridged??
- By Delano on 04-17-13
By: Richard Rhodes
-
Arsenals of Folly
- The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a narrative that moves like a thriller, Rhodes sheds light on the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s, as well as the arms-reduction campaign that followed, and Reagan's famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev. Rhodes' detailed exploration of events of this time constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising - a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.
-
-
overall outstanding
- By Thomas on 06-25-09
By: Richard Rhodes
-
Power Trip
- The Story of Energy
- By: Michael E. Webber
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Energy is humanity's single most important resource. In fact, as energy expert Michael E. Webber argues in Power Trip, the story of how societies rise can be told largely as the story of how they manage energy sources through time. In 2019, as we face down growing demand for and accumulating environmental impacts from energy, we are at a crossroads and the stakes are high. But history shows us that energy's great value is that it allows societies to reinvent themselves.
-
-
A History of Energy for Everybody
- By Brian Shivers on 08-14-19
-
The New Map
- Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is being shaken by the collision of energy, climate change, and the clashing power of nations in a time of global crisis. The "shale revolution" in oil and gas - made possible by fracking technology, but not without controversy - has transformed the American economy, ending the "era of shortage", but introducing a turbulent new era. Almost overnight, the United States has become the world's number one energy powerhouse - and, during the coronavirus crisis, brokered a tense truce between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
-
-
Not his best: Overly broad, kind of sloppy
- By Jonathan Kelman on 02-23-21
By: Daniel Yergin
-
The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas.
-
-
Best nonfiction book of 2011
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Daniel Yergin
-
Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
- By: Gwyneth Cravens
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the constant threat of oil shortages facing us and wanting to educate herself about possible alternatives, Gwyneth Cravens skeptically sets out to find for herself the truth about nuclear energy. Her conclusion: It is a totally viable and practical solution to global warming. She enlists the help of Rip Anderson, a leading scientist in the field of risk assessment, and with his tutelage, she travels the country, visiting uranium mines, enrichment centers, reactors, and waste sites.
-
-
Debunking Nuclear Superstition
- By Doug on 09-11-12
By: Gwyneth Cravens
-
Dark Sun
- The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Richard Rhodes
- Length: 6 hrs
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Rhodes' landmark history of the atomic bomb won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Now, in this majestic new masterpiece of history, science, and politics, he tells for the first time the secret story of how and why the hydrogen bomb was made, and traces the path by which this supreme artifact of 20th-century technology became the defining issue of the Cold War.
-
-
Abridged??
- By Delano on 04-17-13
By: Richard Rhodes
-
Arsenals of Folly
- The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a narrative that moves like a thriller, Rhodes sheds light on the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s, as well as the arms-reduction campaign that followed, and Reagan's famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev. Rhodes' detailed exploration of events of this time constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising - a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.
-
-
overall outstanding
- By Thomas on 06-25-09
By: Richard Rhodes
-
Power Trip
- The Story of Energy
- By: Michael E. Webber
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Energy is humanity's single most important resource. In fact, as energy expert Michael E. Webber argues in Power Trip, the story of how societies rise can be told largely as the story of how they manage energy sources through time. In 2019, as we face down growing demand for and accumulating environmental impacts from energy, we are at a crossroads and the stakes are high. But history shows us that energy's great value is that it allows societies to reinvent themselves.
-
-
A History of Energy for Everybody
- By Brian Shivers on 08-14-19
-
The New Map
- Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world is being shaken by the collision of energy, climate change, and the clashing power of nations in a time of global crisis. The "shale revolution" in oil and gas - made possible by fracking technology, but not without controversy - has transformed the American economy, ending the "era of shortage", but introducing a turbulent new era. Almost overnight, the United States has become the world's number one energy powerhouse - and, during the coronavirus crisis, brokered a tense truce between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
-
-
Not his best: Overly broad, kind of sloppy
- By Jonathan Kelman on 02-23-21
By: Daniel Yergin
-
The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- By: Daniel Yergin
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas.
-
-
Best nonfiction book of 2011
- By Joshua Kim on 05-06-12
By: Daniel Yergin
-
The Grid
- The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
- By: Gretchen Bakke
- Narrated by: Emily Caudwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.
-
-
Needed more... and less
- By J. Pegg on 11-22-16
By: Gretchen Bakke
-
Energy and Civilization
- A History
- By: Vaclav Smil
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 20 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel-driven civilization and offers listeners a magisterial overview of humanity's energy eras.
-
-
Not a good format for this book
- By C. Hoogeboom on 05-19-18
By: Vaclav Smil
-
The Science of Energy
- Resources and Power Explained
- By: Michael E. Wysession, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Michael E. Wysession
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To better put into perspective the various issues surrounding energy in the 21st century, you need to understand the essential science behind how energy works. And you need a reliable source whose focus is on giving you the facts you need to form your own educated opinions.
-
-
Great Course on Energy
- By Bruce A. Nelson on 07-17-17
By: Michael E. Wysession, and others
-
Masters of Death
- The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Neil Hellegers
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Masters of Death, Richard Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen's role in the Holocaust. These "special task forces", organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into Eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than one and a half million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar.
-
-
Good book...but...
- By Disintegrator on 08-26-19
By: Richard Rhodes
-
Scientist
- E. O. Wilson: A Life in Nature
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fascinated from an early age by the natural world in general and ants in particular, Edward Osborne Wilson's field work on them and on all social insects has vastly expanded our knowledge of their many species and fascinating ways of being. This work led to his 1975 book Sociobiology, which created an intellectual firestorm from his contention that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is governed by the laws of evolution and genetics. Subsequently, Wilson has become a leading voice on the crucial importance to all life of biodiversity.
-
-
A wonderful Biography, I feel like I know him.
- By Nebbie on 12-18-21
By: Richard Rhodes
-
Shorting the Grid
- The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid
- By: Meredith Angwin
- Narrated by: Eric G. Meyer
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grid insiders know how fragile the grid is becoming. Unfortunately, they have no incentive to solve the problem because near-misses increase their profits. Meredith Angwin describes how closed meetings, arcane auction rules, and five-minute planning horizons will topple the reliability of our electric grid. Shorting the Grid shines light on the vulnerabilities of our grid, and includes suggestions for making the grid more dependable.
-
-
A Must listen for all who care about climate, energy security, and prosperity
- By Jennifer Klay on 08-06-22
By: Meredith Angwin
-
Guns, Germs and Steel
- The Fate of Human Societies
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.
-
-
Great book, poor narration
- By Nick M. on 03-27-16
By: Jared Diamond
-
Atomic Accidents
- A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima
- By: James Mahaffey
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.
-
-
A NUCLEAR POINT OF VIEW
- By CHET YARBROUGH on 01-05-15
By: James Mahaffey
-
The Perfectionists
- How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
-
-
Well researched history of precision.
- By BigGnBigD on 06-14-18
By: Simon Winchester
-
Our Oriental Heritage
- The Story of Civilization, Volume 1
- By: Will Durant
- Narrated by: Robin Field
- Length: 50 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first volume of Will Durant's Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I chronicles the early history of Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.
-
-
Wonderful
- By Michael on 11-30-13
By: Will Durant
-
The Cold War
- A New History
- By: John Lewis Gaddis
- Narrated by: Jay Gregory, Alan Sklar
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Drawing on new and often startling information from newly opened Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives, this thrilling account explores the strategic dynamics that drove the Cold War, provides illuminating portraits of its major personalities, and offers much fresh insight into its most crucial events. Riveting, revelatory, and wise, it tells a story whose lessons it is vitally necessary to understand as America once more faces an implacable ideological enemy.
-
-
WOW
- By Cordell eddings on 10-13-07
-
The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
-
-
Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
Publisher's Summary
Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author Richard Rhodes reveals the fascinating history behind energy transitions over time - wood to coal to oil to electricity and beyond.
People have lived and died, businesses have prospered and failed, and nations have risen to world power and declined, all over energy challenges. Ultimately, the history of these challenges tells the story of humanity itself.
Through an unforgettable cast of characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes explains how wood gave way to coal and coal made room for oil, as we now turn to natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Rhodes looks back on five centuries of progress, through such influential figures as Queen Elizabeth I, King James I, Benjamin Franklin, Herman Melville, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford.
In Energy, Rhodes highlights the successes and failures that led to each breakthrough in energy production, from animal and water power to the steam engine, from internal combustion to the electric motor. He addresses how we learned from such challenges, mastered their transitions, and capitalized on their opportunities. Rhodes also looks at the current energy landscape, with a focus on how wind energy is competing for dominance with cast supplies of coal and natural gas. He also addresses the specter of global warming and a population hurtling toward 10 billion by 2100.
Human beings have confronted the problem of how to draw life from raw material since the beginning of time. Each invention, each discovery, each adaptation brought further challenges, and through such transformations we arrived at where we are today. In Rhodes’ singular style, Energy details how this knowledge of our history can inform our way tomorrow.
More from the same
What listeners say about Energy
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Photino
- 07-26-18
Rhodes si, accents no!
Rhodes’s book Is engaging but is not easy to listen to. Mr. Roy’s attempts at accents are unfortunate and amateurish. He has a pleasant and clear voice. If only he had just read the book and omitted the histrionics.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Parts
- 07-22-18
Does not disappoint.
An in depth analysis of energy from wood to nuclear to renewables. Rhoades recounts the history of how society, whose existence, limitations, and growth ultimately depend on energy. As those of you who have read his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" will note his work is unbiased, straightforward an approach to history. This departs from that only in the final chapter when necessity forces him to draw conclusions from history and project these forward in time. Although some disagreement may exist on the precise nature of how the future might unfold, no thinking person can disagree with the general idea of these conclusions. An excellent work of history and prescient futurism combined.
17 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ned Gulley
- 08-30-18
No more accents, please!
Hello to Audible narrators, Audible producers, Audible editors: I love your books. I love your service. But please please PLEASE don't use foreign accents when reading nonfiction. It's painfully distracting. This is a terrific book. But, just to take one example: the French inventor Denis Papin did not speak English with a bad French accent. He spoke French. We know that, and we don't need to be reminded of it. When you're reading an English translation of his words, it doesn't help to say it in a bad French accent. Or a good French accent. Or a French accent of any kind. It actually makes it very hard to concentrate on the text. I'm begging you not to do this with other nonfiction books. I might not have ordered this book had I realized how much of this I would have to listen to.
But it is a good book!
40 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Peter Jensen
- 09-09-18
Poor narration
I did not like how the narrator performed various accents, otherwise the book was fine.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Graham Reynolds
- 03-04-20
weird accents by narrator ruin the book.
the book itself is good. Get the physical copy
the narrator keeps putting in annoying accents
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sabacon
- 03-07-19
Good Voice, Poor Reading
To give a printed book analogy of this audio book: You have an interesting story, you choose a lovely font and then make all pages annoyingly hard to read by placing many of the words on the pages without any spaces between them. I had to stop listening, could not finish, the narrators voice is cool and nice like a beautiful font but the manner of reading sounds atrocious in headphones which I have to use.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Clay Wilcox
- 02-07-19
Speak Up
Unfortunately the narrator speaks in a tone that is almost a whisper. It makes it unpleasant for me to listen to the book with my headphones. However, the story and the level of detail he goes into is worth the read...just don't listen on headphones.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Paul in Maryland
- 01-19-19
Too focused in Modern Anglo- America
essentially this book begins at the Industrial Revolution in England and seldom leaves England or America. I was hoping to go back to the farthest civilizations. Also, I could have done without the American narrators tepid imitations of English, Scottish, Irish, and Russian accents.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- DMgraphicGlass
- 08-27-18
Not as comprehensive as perhaps is warranted today.
It is a history, so no peek into what may be just over the horizon, such as “gasoline from sunlight” an industrialization of what plants do with photosynthesis - make a liquid source of energy with sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water. And because he wanted to write a much shorter book, this is not nearly as comprehensive as his two books on the making of the atomic and nuclear bombs. But still, a worthwhile listen. And he makes a great case for keeping nuclear energy as part of the mix of future electrical generation.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- J. Rector
- 08-21-18
Soporific narration.
The book is good, but did not meet my high expectations. The reader has a soft tone that when combined with the dry material makes for a sleepy listen. Reader’s decent but unnecessary attempts to inflect foreign accents on quoted material were distracting.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- R Yates
- 11-30-20
Good, but accents were distractingly bad.
Sir, please refrain from accents in the future. Apart from that, good narrator.
Very informative. I'd have loved to hear a little more about renewable energy at the end and a bit less about the minute details of e.g. the discovery of electricity.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- NEIL MURPHY
- 09-30-19
TURGID DISJOINTED AND SOPORIFIC
Curiously structured book that jumps all over history in a very boring and disjointed fashion that is difficult to follow let alone enjoy. The tedium and complexity of the narrative is matched only by the dullness of the narrator - too softly spoken and most apt to lose your concentration except when he attempts foreign accents, which are laughable bordering upon offensive. Worst audio book I’ve ever waded through.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Geoffrey Morley
- 08-23-19
Awful attempts at accents
I'm sure it contains interesting stories but by the time the inexplicably Indian sounding quotes from James Watt were read I had lost my ability to ignore the performance and concentrate on the detail.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Cliente Amazon
- 01-09-19
Definitely a must for one's world understanding
the book portrays an excellent picture of how the search for solutions to various problems weave into technological innovation and the improvement of societies!
I think the reader is able to imitate any accent imaginable :)
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- D. Jarenicz
- 06-06-18
Interesting topics, very well narrated
I have listened to Richard's previous books and always enjoyed them. This was also enjoyable, strayed off topic sometimes. Great narration
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Pierz Newton-John
- 07-12-18
Excellent book but please spare us the accents!
This is not quite the riveting read that Rhodes' account of the making of the atomic bomb was, but still a very comprehensive and interesting history of the development of energy technologies from the start of the coal age. Jacques Roy has a pleasant voice to listen to, but he has alas fallen prey to the pernicious fashion for reading historical quotes in the accent of the person being quoted. Unfortunately his accents are truly execrable and do nothing but annoy and distract. Please Audible narrators, just stop it.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Anonymous User
- 02-15-20
History of energy
Deep dive into the history of energy from Richard Rhodes. I wasn't quite expecting this but it was a really handy review. Narrator Jacque Roy is very good in most books but for some reason tried to use accents (Scottish, a poor Russian one) which is unusual for him and slightly detracted from the performance. If you want to understand how we got to where we are from an energy perspective, this is your book. I thought they could've spent a little more time on renewables and less time on the very early parts like wood etc. Good stuff anyway.