As we face the existential threat of climate change and scramble to open pathways to a more sustainable energy future, many scholars have turned to examine previous energy regimes in order to better understand how we got here, and where we might go next.
Germán Vergara's superb new book, Fueling Mexico, offers a detailed, vivid, and incisive portrait of energy in Mexican history. He tells the story of Mexico's transition to fossil fuel dependency in five deeply researched and richly detailed chapters. In the mid-nineteenth century, the prevailing solar energy regime placed clear limits on the lives of Mexicans—their access to nutrition and to heat, and their ability to move across the landscape—as well as on the productive capacity of local and regional economies. A century later, oil and natural gas appeared to offer unlimited potential and little downside to an economy in the midst of unprecedented economic growth,...
