Jamie L. Jones, Rendered Obsolete: Energy Culture and the Afterlife of US Whaling

Early in her excellent book Rendered Obsolete: Energy Culture and the Afterlife of US Whaling, Jamie Jones reminds us that in the mid-nineteenth century the word “energy” did not refer to coal or petroleum, let alone whale oil or other illuminants. Even its scientific definition was still being worked out by scientists like Joule and Kelvin. Yet fifty years later, the term had come to signify not only a measurable property of activity, a material resource, and an economic sector of infrastru...