Books like Thirst for Power — picked by fans

I’m an energy researcher and energy industry strategist who has worked in academia, government, and the private sector for almost fifty years. I became fascinated with the importance of energy in planetary sustainability as an undergraduate engineering student in the 1970s and have been working in the field ever since. I’ve been fortunate to see how the energy system works from the standpoint of academic researchers, private companies, regulators, Wall Street, consumers, and government policymakers, and this gives me a broad perspective.

I’m an energy researcher and energy industry strategist who has worked in academia, government, and the private sector for almost fifty years. I became fascinated with the importance of energy in planetary sustainability as an undergraduate engineering student in the 1970s and have been working in the field ever since. I’ve been fortunate to see how the energy system works from the standpoint of academic researchers, private companies, regulators, Wall Street, consumers, and government policymakers, and this gives me a broad perspective.

I’m an energy researcher and energy industry strategist who has worked in academia, government, and the private sector for almost fifty years. I became fascinated with the importance of energy in planetary sustainability as an undergraduate engineering student in the 1970s and have been working in the field ever since. I’ve been fortunate to see how the energy system works from the standpoint of academic researchers, private companies, regulators, Wall Street, consumers, and government policymakers, and this gives me a broad perspective.

I’m an energy researcher and energy industry strategist who has worked in academia, government, and the private sector for almost fifty years. I became fascinated with the importance of energy in planetary sustainability as an undergraduate engineering student in the 1970s and have been working in the field ever since. I’ve been fortunate to see how the energy system works from the standpoint of academic researchers, private companies, regulators, Wall Street, consumers, and government policymakers, and this gives me a broad perspective.

History is my passion as well as my profession. I love a good story! When I was teaching courses in environmental history and women’s history, I kept noticing the intriguing intersections, which inspired me to write Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers. Most of my work focuses on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1877-1920) and includes two award-winning biographies, Fighting Bob La Follette and Belle La Follette Progressive Era Reformer. I’m also the co-editor of A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era and have written dozens of op-eds and give public talks (some of which can be found in the C-SPAN online library and on YouTube). 

Andreas Bieler’s main research focus has been on the possibilities of labour movements, broadly defined, to represent the interests of their members and wider societies in struggles against capitalist exploitation in times of neo-liberal globalisation. His research on water struggles in Europe was motivated by the fact that this has been one of the few areas, in which resistance has actually been successful. Understanding the reasons behind this success may help us understand what is necessary for success in other areas of resistance. 

When I first visited Central Asia in 2008, little did I know that it would become the focus of my life and work. I now advise the World Bank and national governments on economic development, with a particular focus on tourism, and I’m the Chairman of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. I am Uzbekistan’s Ambassador for Tourism, a co-founder of the Silk Road Literary Festival, and I’ve written and updated guidebooks to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and the Silk Road.

I entered Tibet in 1985 on a mission to write the first English guidebook to the place. In the decades since then, I have embarked on a number of voyages across Tibet, as well as into the Tibetan-speaking regions of India, Nepal, Mongolia and Bhutan. Nothing beats boots on the ground to inspire passion—and an accurate reading of the situation. As a keen environmental activist, I have made five short documentaries, of which four are devoted to environment issues in Tibet, from China’s megadams on the rivers of Tibet to Chinese plundering of Tibet’s mineral wealth. 

I grew up in Ohio, just south of the Great Lakes. As a kid, I spent time on the Lakes fishing with my dad. I’ve been fascinated with these freshwater seas and their ecological richness ever since. My love for the Lakes eventually merged with my passion for early American history when I attended graduate school at Notre Dame. There, I began researching how Native peoples understood and utilized the unique geography of the Lakes. That work grew into my first book, Muddy Ground, and I anticipate the rest of my career as a historian will be dedicated to studying the environmental and human history of the Great Lakes region.

Visiting journalists regularly misinterpret California. Outside politicians twist it into bizarre caricatures. I know because I have worked as a journalist in all parts of the state. I covered crime for the LA Herald Examiner, spent 27 years at the LA Times, was a columnist and editorial page editor at the Sacramento Bee and, finally, was senior editor of the nonprofit news organization, CalMatters. I’ve covered governors, wildfires, a major earthquake, politics, mass incarceration, mass shootings, an execution, and all manner of policy. There are many great nonfiction books about California, including Jim Newton’s biographies of Earl Warren and Jerry Brown, Randy Shilts’s The Mayor of Castro Street, and Gladwin Hill’s Dancing Bear.