Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil

In his 2006 book Energy and Civilization: A History, author Vaclav Smil details how energy has shaped the course of human civilization. Throughout his analysis, Smil highlights both the historical context of energy production and consumption, and how developments in energy were directly linked to prosperity and the advancements of human societies.

The book emphasizes energy in isolation, separate from other socioeconomic factors like technology and resources, as an agent for human progress. Smil explains how energy worked as the catalyst in the formation of, continuation of, and issue disruptions to commonalities in civilizations.

To support his analysis, Smil begins by identifying five periods of energy use widely used throughout human history: the hunter-gatherer, agricultural, industrial, hydrocarbon, and postmodern. Within each of these eras, he focuses on the types of energy resources used, their rate of consumption, as well as their availability over time.

For the hunter-gatherers, Smil identifies the primary energy sources as fire in particular, as well stretching out to sources such as earth-moving and ropemaking. Fire gave the hunter-gatherers power to accomplish greater tasks and perform activities faster, however the use and abuse of fire limited the potential environmental destruction.

Agricultural societies exploited and benefited from advances in energy more than the hunter-gatherer period, making use of draft animals, water and wind power, slaughtering of animals for fuel, and burning of vegetation for fuel. Smil explains that the energy advances of this burst drastically changed the habits of food production, as well as other aspects of daily life.

The industrial era not only saw a heightened use of energy, but also a great leap forward in agricultural production. With the integrated networks of railroad and telegraph, agriculture was able to export crop yield beyond national boundaries and increase the rate of production. Smil notes energy production mirrored the use of agricultural production with electricity replacing water, wind, and animal power.

The hydrocarbon era is commonly characterized by innovations in the production and transportation of oil. This period saw the global power composition drastically shifted towards the middle east, seeing countries produce a tremendous amount of profits from the newfound ability to export significant quantities of oil globally.

The book ends with the postmodern era, an era characterized by the global usage of sophisticated energy systems, with significant advancements in the efficiency and availability of energy throughout the world. Smil argues that these energy systems have become crucial in daily life, as well as giving societies the resources to take advantage of renewable energy sources.

To conclude Energy and Civilization: A History, Smil highlights the importance of energy as both a form of power, as well as how energy ties together with the wider context of human history. Smil notes with this newfound understanding of energy, society can use energy resources in a beneficial way to increase the social and economic well-being of society as a whole.