Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Absolutely fascinating... June 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although I haven't finished Internal Combustion quite yet, I'm finding it a lot of fun to read.
It's a great history lesson, and Black does a great job backing up every claim. This book will definitely excite you and piss you off at the same time, as you'll see how the little man and great American innovation is/has been fun to watch, while corporations and the individuals that are businessmen first, and innovators second, have done much to put us in the hole we're in today.
 Great History of Energy Cartels May 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Edwin Black uses meticulous documentation and a lucid writing style to relate the history of energy cartels from the ruthless control of the "King's Forest," who owned ALL of the forests, through the coal cartels of the Industrial Revolution to the battery and bicycle cartels down to the gas-engine and Petroleum cartels of today.
It is a stunning portrayal of how greed and corruption choke progress both often by design. Sometimes perfectly good technologies die simply because they are promoted prematurely due to incompetence or due to fraudulent misrepresenion of their stage of development to investors, usually by sham-promoters.
Nonetheless, Henry Ford fought the system and won!!! So, it can be done!!!
The most complete incomplete history book of 2006 August 25, 2007
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
A common thread throughout human history is the suspicion that the way the world is did not come about naturally as a result of countless choices by countless individuals; but instead was cobbled together via a series of hidden decisions made by those in power for the sake of expanding or preserving their power. In modern America, this line of thought is often denoted as "cospiracy theory". Beginning with the explosion of the USS Maine that began the Spanish-American War, continuuing thru the timing of Pearl Harbor, the JFK assasination, the Oklahoma City Bombing and then 9-11, historical evidence is annually produced which implies that elected officials often and purposefully makes decisions that are antithical to the national good. Often times these conspiracy theories are quickly debunked, but other times, a few key interviews, a fortunate bumbling and suddenly a mountain of evidence comes pouring out verifying the wildest suspicions. The most famous examples are the Watergate scandal, probably followed by Iran-Contra, and the legacies behind the Tucker and DeLorian cars.
But maybe the most important "conspiracy theory" proven true is the one documented in this book by Edwin Black. Dr. Black and his coworkers literally combed through tons of documentation that show how the modern industrialized world has come to depend on oil. The book is written in chronological order, and the first half shows how previous societies were also built around the dependence on non-renewable fuels, such as coal, wood, peat bog, etc... These previous societies included the ancient Egyptians, the Victorian English, and various empires of ancient Mesopotamia.
The second half of the book focuses on the period from 1880 to 1950, when critical decisions were made that destroyed both mass transit and the electric car industry in America, and replaced it with the system of freeways and gas automobiles. The key culprits included General Motors, Standard Oil and its children, and to a lesser extent, Yellow Cab, National City Lines, and various local, state, and nationally elected and appointed officials. Using all sorts of unsavory actions such as bribery, extortion, kickbacks, blackmail, front companies, and monopolistic practices, GM, Standard Oil and their corporate accomplices manipulated state and local authorities into giving up mass transit and adopting gas cars and freeways.
Throughout the book, the author presents a whole multitude of referenced evidence to prove his point. Sources include court proceedings, interviews, newspaper articles, publications in peer-reviewed journals, business contracts, legislative records, etc... And along the way, the author highlights critical moments when history could have been changed, when America could have stepped away from oil and pursued other sources. The final two chapters shows how alternative energy sources are being used in other countries, such as ethanol in Brazil, geothermal in Iceland, and solar energy in Germany. Surprisingly, in the final chapter, the author argues for hydrogen fuel via fuel cells as the future of energy. This reviewer personally believes solar is more feasible.
The only shortfall of the book is its time span. The period from 1950 to 2005 gets about 25% of the book, even though many crucial events happened here that deserve more mention. Excluded events that deserved more mention in this book include the following:
1. Several US presidents, notably Nixon, pressuring OPEC to drop oil prices as a way of hurting the USSR, which depended on international oil sales for hard cash.
2. The spread of zoning laws that forcefully separated residential, commercial and business areas, thereby forcing everyone to drive from home to work to school.
3. The Detroit-led fight against CAFE standards, unleaded gasoline, catalytic converters, and a whole host of other measures.
4. The links between current Afghan president Hamid Karzai and the western oil companies.
5. The increasing rivalry among East Asian countries over local oil sources.
6. The oil depletion tax break and how it affects US national politics.
7. Local bans against the use of alternative energy sources, especially in Republican states. The best example of this is in sun-rich Arizona, where most home-owners associations ban any installation of solar panels, even in the back yards where nobody can see them. I suspect the oil, coal and natural gas companies had something to do with this.
It is because of these misses that I call this an incomplete book. But even with all that it lacks, it still contains a great amount of knowledge. The reading level of the book is appropriate for high school seniors, and I would recommend it for anyone and everyone.
Great audiobook, priced to "not move." August 6, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I bought this audio book at a big-box retail store for their full price, about 25% less than it is on "Sale" for here. Weird. Don't they want this info on the streets?
Don't let the price stop you from being informed and empowered! Find it affordably and get it, listen and ACT. Now. The Planet you save may be your own.
There is another way.
-Dutch
 Worth reading, but inadequate June 5, 2007
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
Edwin Black researches his books beautifully, always providing important historical information. Internal Combustion informs the reader exactly how we got into the mess in which we now find ourselves, having addicted ourselves en masse to a non-renewable, toxic, polluting substance. Mr. Black says we chose the wrong fork in the road, back when we still had a choice. We could have chosen to use electricity rather than petroleum to propel ourselves around; and for a while it looked like we were going to do that. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford even partnered to create and market a practical, affordable electric vehicle. Then, of course, the corporate forces of greed intervened, side-tracking the world onto the path of petroleum dependence.
This much of Internal Combustion rewards the reader, and provides ample reason to buy this book. When Edwin Black sticks to history, he has few peers. But when he turns to suggesting a solution to the dilemma we have created for ourselves he loses traction. He advocates the adoption of hydrogen fuel cells to replace internal combustion engines. Isolating and compressing hydrogen for fuel cells requires huge amounts of electricity. Currently, we generate electricity in mostly non-sustainable, polluting ways: using coal, natural gas, nuclear fission, even petroleum. To his credit, Mr. Black advocates switching to more sustainable methods of generating electricity, such as wind farms and solar farms. However these methods require vast tracts of land, and endanger wildlife and ecosystems. Internal Combustion would have benefited from deeper investigation into fossil fuel alternatives, showing both positive and negative aspects to each method, rather than championing just one possible choice of many. One also wonders how much Honda paid Mr. Black to advertise their hydrogen fuel cell vehicle ....
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