The Quest

Daniel Yergin follows his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Prize with a broad account of how energy shapes the modern world. He treats it as a driving force behind political upheaval, economic change and international conflict, and he traces the story across the fuels that built industrial civilization as well as the newer sources now competing to take their place.

The book goes behind the scenes on coal, electricity and natural gas, and it takes on hard questions about where energy is heading. Yergin explains how climate change rose to become one of the defining issues of the age. He then covers the revival of renewable energy, the push for energy independence and the comeback of the electric car.

Yergin is both a leading energy expert and a gifted storyteller, and the narrative is built around the decisions, technologies and people who are shaping what comes next. The result is a wide-ranging and timely guide to how the world arrived at its present energy situation and the choices that lie ahead.