PositiveThe Christian Science Monitor... an ambitious, pithy survey of the evolving landscape of oil and gas that squeezes in vignettes of a 15th century Chinese navigator, intra-OPEC feuds, and Vladimir Putin’s pique at U.S. frackers ... This skepticism towards activism infuses a book on energy and climate that is geared largely to the former. When oil and gas emissions come up, he offers bland reassurance. The heat-trapping methane that leaks copiously from gas wells rates a single paragraph ... The effects of climate change are absent in this book, perhaps understandably given its focus on geopolitics. But these effects already impinge on the industry that he studies so closely ... Yergin takes some enjoyable detours on his geopolitical tour, deftly folding China’s bellicose maritime claims into the historical voyages of Zheng He. Other sketches are less edifying, such as the tangential tale of the trucking magnate who invented container shipping in 1956.
