Internal Combustion, Edwin Black
Internal Combustion, Edwin Black
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Internal Combustion
How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Subverted the Alternatives

Author: Edwin Black

Narrator: Stephen Hoye

Unabridged: 16 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/30/2021


Synopsis

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.

About Edwin Black

Edwin Black is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of IBM and the Holocaust, The Transfer Agreement, and War Against the Weak. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Newsday, the Village Voice, the Sunday Times (of London), and the Los Angeles Times, as well as in leading magazines such as the American Bar Association Journal, American Lawyer, and Der Spiegel (Germany). Black has won numerous awards for distinguished journalism, including the Carl Sandburg Award, three Rockower Awards, and two awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.


Reviews

Goodreads review by John

This is a pretty ordinary history book. The author does cover some interesting topics, specifically: 1. The patent disputes during the very early days of the auto industry 2. Ford and Edison's aborted plan to develop an "electric Model-T" 3. The Milwaukee Railroad, its 600 mile electric railway over t......more

Goodreads review by Chris

Excellent research, organization and writing. The author allows the reader to draw their own conclusions regarding the Edison "arson" at his research station in New Jersey. Readers of this book must somehow learn to live with the knowledge that we were put on a fossil fuel track 100 years or so ago,......more

Goodreads review by Daniel

I read this book a while ago and some of its concepts have stuck in my memory: Thomas Edisons vision of self sufficient households generating their own power via windmills charging a variety of DC batteries is fascinating. His work, done in the early 1900s, could be of great value 100 years later. Th......more

Goodreads review by Mark

This was a fantastic book about the history of electrical engines versus their internal combustion competition. It is by the author of IBM and the Holocaust, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. So right away it is well-written and exhaustively researched. It is eye-opening in all the right ways for......more