Description: Though ethanol, a liquid fuel made from agricultural byproducts, has generated controversy in recent years--good or bad for the environment? a big-ag boon or boondoggle?--its use goes back more than a century. Tracing the little-known history of this promising and contentious fuel, Ethanol: A Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels reveals the transnational nature of ethanol's development by its two biggest producers, the U.S. and Brazil.
Brief description:
Thomas D. Rogers is Professor of History at Emory University and the author of Agriculture's Energy: The Trouble with Ethanol in Brazil's Green Revolution.
Review Quotes: "Manuel and Rogers make an important contribution to the growing field of energy humanities studies. By examining the transnational connections and divergences between ethanol's development in Brazil and the United States, the authors open new dialogue about the place of alternative fuels in international energy regimes of the twentieth century and their evolution in the twenty-first."--Jennifer Eaglin, author of Sweet Fuel: A Political and Environmental History of Brazilian Ethanol