Reading Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm. It's a critical history of fossil fuels and the origins of anthropogenic climate change. Basically, Malm argues that the fossil fuel economy originates in 1) the mechanization of the exploding English textile industry of the early parts of the Industrial Revolution and 2) the need to free the textile factories from the geographic constraints of water power.
Both factors were driven by the need to control labor. Mechanization was implemented to suppress unionization and rising wages, while steam power was needed to bring the factories closer to the population centers in order to exploit the reserve army of labor. This counters the liberal narrative that fossil fuels were integrated into the textile industry due to power constraints or mechanical efficiency.
Reading Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm. It's a critical history of fossil fuels and the origins of anthropogenic climate change. Basically, Malm argues that the fossil fuel economy originates in 1) the mechanization of the exploding English textile industry of the early parts of the Industrial Revolution and 2) the need to free the textile factories from the geographic constraints of water power.
Both factors were driven by the need to control labor. Mechanization was implemented to suppress unionization and rising wages, while steam power was needed to bring the factories closer to the population centers in order to exploit the reserve army of labor. This counters the liberal narrative that fossil fuels were integrated into the textile industry due to power constraints or mechanical efficiency.