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Since the onset of the Second Industrial Revolution in the second half of the nineteenth century, energy has become a key axis of politics and international relations, particularly for the United States and Western Europe. In Energy and the Politics of the North Atlantic, George A. Gonzalez documents how the United States—thanks to its copious reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas—was able to assume a dominant position in the world system by the 1920s. This energy/economic imbalance was an important causal factor underlying the eruption of World War II. After 1945, and in the context of the Cold War with communism, the United States used its access to both fossil fuels and nuclear power as a means to defeat the Soviet Union and its allies. Driving American foreign policy, Gonzalez argues, is a domestic system of urban sprawl based on the automobile and the energy reserves necessary to maintain it. The massive consumer demand created by urban sprawl underpins US foreign policy in the Middle East, while concerns over access to energy drive the European Union project.
What set the United States on the path to developing commercial nuclear energy in the 1950s, and what led to the seeming demise of that industry in the late 1970s? Why, in spite of the depletion of fossil fuels and the obvious dangers of global warming, has the United States moved so slowly toward adopting alternatives? In Energy and Empire, George A. Gonzalez presents a clear and concise argument demonstrating that economic elites tied their advocacy of the nuclear energy option to post-1945 American foreign policy goals. At the same time, these elites opposed government support for other forms of energy, such as solar, that cannot be dominated by one nation. While researchers have blamed s...
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This book examines five rhetorical strategies used by the US coal industry to advance its interests in the face of growing economic and environmental pressures: industrial apocalyptic, corporate ventriloquism, technological shell game, hypocrite’s trap, and energy utopia. The authors argue that these strategies appeal to and reinforce neoliberalism, a discourse and set of practices that privilege market rationality and individual freedom and responsibility above all else. As the coal industry has become the leading target and leverage point for those seeking more aggressive action to mitigate climate change, their corporate advocacy may foreshadow rhetorical strategies available to other fossil fuel industries as they manage similar economic and cultural shifts. The authors’ analysis of coal’s corporate advocacy also identifies contradictions and points of vulnerability in the organized resistance to climate action as well as the larger ideological formation of neoliberalism.
"This book is not only a biography of Howard F. Ahmanson but also the story of the financing of the postwar housing boom and the tremendous growth of Los Angeles. Americans have long believed that homeownership is fundamental to the strength of our democracy and the character of our people. Victory in World War II, combined with new government policies designed to stimulate mortgage lending, sparked a tremendous surge in rates of homeownership in the 1950s. With savings and loans providing more than half of the mortgages for these homes, the industry enjoyed a golden era in its history--especially in southern California. Among its peers, Home Savings & Loan Association of Los Angeles was a g...
Collaborative Advantage offers a bold new take on the drivers and consequences of globalization, both for innovation in renewable energy industries and domestic politics. In an era of rapid international economic integration, how do countries interact, innovate, and compete in industries, like energy, that are fundamental to national interests? In Collaborative Advantage, Jonas Nahm examines the development of the wind and solar industries, two historically important sectors that have long been the target of ambitious public policy. As wind and solar grew from cottage industries into lucrative global sectors of geopolitical importance, China, Germany, and the United States each developed dis...
As globalization explodes, so has international business scholarship. This second edition of the Oxford Handbook of International Business synthesises all the relevant literature of the last 40 years in 28 original chapters by the world's most distinguished scholars. Reflecting the changes and development in the field since the first edition this new edition has a changed structure, all the chapters have been updated to take account of the latest scholarship, and five new chapters freshly written. The Handbook is divided into six major sections, providing comprehensive coverage of the following areas: · History and Theory of the Multinational Enterprise · The Political and Regulatory Environment · Strategy and International Management · Managing the MNE · Area Studies · Methodological Issues These state of the art literature reviews will be invaluable references for students in business schools, social sciences, law, and area studies.
Throughout the US oil and gas shale are being 'hydrofracked' to produce petroleum and natural gas. Oil (or tar) sands from Canada is being 'processed' – thereby generating large amounts of crude. This book places the unconventional fossil fuels revolution that is taking place in North America within the context of great power politics.
In this provocative and original study, George A. Gonzalez argues that the relationship between energy and the state, as well as global politics, has become more and more deeply intertwined, reaching something of a crescendo with the global hegemony of Pax Americana in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He presents a clear and concise case for viewing the modern state as the collaborative and affirmative union of capitalism and political authority in a setting where energy resources, be it wind, coal, or oil, provide the basis for the relatively inexpensive projection of political power. More broadly, energy serves as the foundation of the modern economy and, because of this, a prime function of the modern state is ensuring access to cheap, reliable sources to power and grow the economy. Historically, energy is more of a zero-sum resource than capital, markets, labor, or technology, and thus is a greater source of geopolitical tension and violence. Energy politics, and by extension international politics is, moreover, shaped by domestic corporate elites, especially those within the United States.