The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work by Cara New Daggett (review).

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work by Cara New Daggett Francesco Gerali (bio) The Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work By Cara New Daggett. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Pp. 280. The Birth of Energy is a well-structured book that frames energy humanities, British colonialism, and environmental history within the field of cultural studies. This work is a resource for the social history of technology in the United Kingdom of the Victorian era, and a contribution to energy and environmental studies. The author's cross-disciplinary approach aims to spark new avenues of interpretation and discussion of today's energy consumption, conservation, waste, and inequality. The book focuses on the mark given to the human habitat by the dominating "culture of labor" rooted in the mantra of the need for perpetually increasing productivity, and on the epistemological and physical origin of the concept of energy in the nineteenth-century United Kingdom, revisiting the history of thermodynamics. In doing this, Cara New Daggett attempts to explain how the Western perception of force, growing in dominance in the nineteenth-century, shaped the idea of work, human-machine interdependency, and energy utilization—and changed the course of human and environmental conditions. In her book, Daggett engages the reader with her analysis of the links between the mechanics of steam technology, Protestant culture, politics, and industrialization, eventually showing how these forces contributed to expansionist goals. The book develops in two parts. Part I is composed of four chapters on early studies and interpretations of energy, the understanding of the potential of the steam engine, and the role of the Protestant work ethic. Within this framework, the governing elites utilized the mass exploitation of fossil fuels and the rise of a "wage-labor" working class to create a so-called unequivocal avenue to the (supposed) wealth of the masses to the glory of capitalist society. [End Page 1287] A Protestant vision of labor and commitment to thrift implies that the optimization of energy input must correspond to a more efficient labor output. Thermodynamics showed how energy transformation—for example, energy chemically stored in coal and transformed into heat to yield vapor—unavoidably leads to energy leakage. In light of this, and in pursuit of efficiency in production and utilization, the Western governing elites needed to increase labor efficiency in order to increase profit. The waste of energy in any form was seen as an improper way to utilize resources to produce force—and as a despicable enemy of the binomial efficiency/profit. Part II explores thermodynamics as discipline used by imperialism to strengthen its position in the colonies. The class bias and assumption of Western white supremacy were supported by the discipline's view of energy and labor. This energy-labor pairing was instrumental in reinforcing the concept that the principles of the Protestant church could be applied to labor and energy production to evangelize to and convert so-called lazy and unproductive native populations. According to Western thought in the nineteenth-century, white Europeans had reached a higher level of civilization than other races thanks to their superior work ethic. Following this narrow view, the lower productivity of indigenous Africans and Native American was derived from their backward agricultural and manufacturing technologies, idleness, and lack of motivation. Because commitment and productivity were reflective of "higher" human virtues, the white colonizer's mission was to inculcate the thermodynamic interpretation of energy and work to native populations. Daggett presents evidence of the fierce opposition of native populations: their divergent views about work and productivity clashed with the Western model. Imposition led to attempts at evasion on the part of the colonized people, reinforcing the idea of the energy superiority of the colonizers. The book critically analyzes the making of the modern idea of energy—for example, the scheme production/consumption of petroleum, gas, and coal—in the early nineteenth century, the political misuse of the laws of physics, the export of the Western model of work to the colonies, and their repercussions on the ecological equilibrium. She seeks to rework some of the already criticized and partly dismantled theses of Weber by...