Williams, James C. Energy and the Making of Modern California. Akron: University of Akron Press, 1997.
From the fuelwood that warmed its early settlers to the nuclear power plants that run the air-conditioners of contemporary citizens, California has shaped itself by tapping available energy resources, in the process coming to learn the capacity and constraints of technology as it affects the environment. Always a land apart, California has also become an early model for the United States and other countries in both its voracious consumption of energy and its enlightened concern for the natural world. Energy and the Making of Modern California, in its vivid abundance of detail and its scholarly range, shows how California’s complex and versatile environment constantly challenged technological inventiveness, making the state’s experience with energy a superb case study that clarifies our changing values and our rising concerns about how we live with the earth we live on. — University of Akron Press website.
James C. Williams is Professor Emeritus at De Anza College in Cupertino, California.