Coal and the Historical Complexity of Energy Security: Peter A. Shulman, Coal and Empire

Abstract

Coal and the Historical Complexity of Energy SecurityPeter A. Shulman, Coal and Empire Benjamin K. Sovacool (bio) Peter A. Shulman’s Coal and Empire: The Birth of Energy Security in Industrial America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Pp. xi+ 317. $49.95) offers an intellectual feast for both historians and modern energy scholars. Meticulously researched and expertly written, it attempts to show how an energy fuel, in this instance coal, became an integral part of United States national security in the nineteenth century. In elucidating this complex history, the book traces the development of three groups of actors, each of which shaped the early American relationship with coal. Naval administrators and officers articulated the need for coal to satiate the ever-growing appetites of naval steamships. Politicians and policymakers debated visions of America and fought to turn their different contestations into codified policy. Scientists and engineers—boiler designers, geologists, mining engineers—were crucial figures who mediated between the two groups and also offered their own particular agendas. The book masterfully shows how these groups cooperated but also struggled to answer questions of energy technology, policy, and security that remain until this day. In embarking on this path, the book makes numerous contributions. The first is to reveal that Americans began to think about energy in terms of security in the nineteenth century, not the twentieth. Hidden within this argument is a gentle critique of modern energy security analysis. Some discussions of the history of energy security in the United States, Shulman argues, make two mistakes. They presume that oil catalyzes the ascent of energy as a national security concern, and they point to a famous meeting in February 1945 between President Franklin Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud [End Page 460] as a crucial moment that laid the foundation for future American interventionism in the Middle East. The book invalidates both lines of thought, arguing that, indeed, Americans discovered the connection between energy services, national interests, and national security as coal and the fueling of steamships created new pressing concerns that led to logistical and even geopolitical challenges. It was in fact the 1800s where we see the nexus of naval strategy, foreign policy, and technological change begin to solidify. A second contribution relates to American hegemony. Shulman convincingly argues that the supposed security need for distant coaling stations did not actually precipitate a need for an American Empire. Rather, the causality worked the other way around; it was the establishment of that nascent empire that created needs for coal and coaling stations. The security of the coal supply was an effect, not a cause, of American imperialism and colonization. A third contribution relates to technological innovation. Shulman suggests that technical change became a vital element of foreign policy as rapid innovations in steam power related directly to contestations over the future role of the United States as a global actor. Thus, Shulman shows how coal became intertwined not only with discussions of energy, growth, and productivity, but also with discourses related to global networks of commerce and their logistical challenges. The book is about far more than simply coal or energy security. For those interested in politics and information studies, chapter 1 explores the contours of “International Steam Politics” and debates over the political economy of information. For the history of engineering, chapter 2 investigates the “Engineering Economy” that arose as engineers, mechanics, and scientists began to build new steam vessels and establish the infrastructure needed to keep them running. This concept of “economy” fused together notions of efficiency, responsibility, and frugality. For geography, chapter 3 assesses “The Economy of Time and Space” and looks at how new innovations economized travel and altered conceptions of time and space. Steam power made remote regions such as Asia or Hawaii suddenly accessible and inviting, with the Pacific becoming—described by one commentator—America’s new placid neighbor. For those interested in African-American studies and racism, chapter 4 discusses “The Slavery Solution” and shows how coal supply became a critical element in the American Civil War. For those interested in studying the internal dynamics of imperialism and empire, chapter 5, “The Debate Over Coaling Stations,” illustrates the intersection of American...