Timothy Mitchell

In this magisterial study, Timothy Mitchell rethinks the history of energy, bringing into his grasp environmental politics, the struggle for democracy, and the place of the Middle East in the modern world. With the rise of coal power, the producers who oversaw its development acquired the ability to shut down energy systems, a threat they used to build the first...

We live in an age in which extraordinary wealth seems to arrive from unfathomable sources, such as when tech firms that have never made a profit are valued at billions of dollars. While seeming extraordinary, this mode of acquiring unearned wealth is, in fact, commonplace. It is a key to understanding how capitalism came into being and a clue to...