The birth of energy

By Cara New Daggett

Subjects: Thermodynamik, Environment and Ecology, The environment, Hd9502.a2 d344 2019, Power resources--history, Energy industries, Energy policy, Power resources--economic aspects--history, Technischer Fortschritt, Power resources--political aspects--history, Power resources--political aspects, Energiepolitik, Imperialismus, Power resources, Environmental aspects, Politische Wissenschaft, Economic aspects, Political science & theory, History, Power resources--economic aspects, Energy consumption--history, 333.79, Environment and ecology, Energy consumption--environmental aspects, Energy consumption, Political aspects, Rassismus

Description: "In The Birth of Energy Cara New Daggett traces the genealogy of contemporary notions of energy back to the nineteenth-century science of thermodynamics to challenge the underlying logic that informs today's uses of energy. These early resource-based concepts of power first emerged during the Industrial Revolution and were tightly bound to Western capitalist domination and the politics of industrialized work. As Daggett shows, thermodynamics was deployed as an imperial science to govern fossil fuel use, labor, and colonial expansion, in part through a hierarchical ordering of humans and nonhumans. By systematically excavating the historical connection between energy and work, Daggett argues that only by transforming the politics of work--most notably, the veneration of waged work--will we be able to confront the Anthropocene's energy problem. Substituting one source of energy for another will not ensure a habitable planet; rather, the concepts of energy and work themselves must be decoupled"---- Provided by publisher.