The Quest is 816 pages, none of which are wasted. The past, present, and future of worldwide energy is a big topic, one that requires a big book.

Higher ed may not be like the airlines, where fuel is the largest expense (ours is labor), but we are no less dependent on energy to run our business than Southwest airlines. If you walked to campus today (or worked at home) that is terrific, but most of us relied on gasoline to power our cars for our commute. Without energy, we could not teach or do research, heat our classrooms and offices, or cool our data centers. Every industry, including higher education, ultimately is possible due to energy. Epic in scope and never more timely, The Quest vividly reveals the decisions, technologies, and individuals that are shaping our future.Ģ011 was a great year for nonfiction, but no book comes close to The Quest for claiming top honors.

He explains how climate change became a great issue and leads readers through the rebirth of renewable energies, energy independence, and the return of the electric car. The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them. This long-awaited successor to Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize provides an essential, overarching narrative of global energy, the principal engine of geopolitical and economic change.Ī master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize.

The quest yergin