American Energy Society has selected Daniel Yergin as Energy Writer of the Year 2020, for his book The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations (Penguin Press).
The New Map earned energy’s highest literary prize for its ambitious survey and realistic assessment of energy and how it shapes all of human affairs. It is also an exceptional literary triumph in its narrative and in the quality of writing that we have come to expect from Dr. Yergin. |
The New Map is a synthesis of critical themes covered in the author’s previous books: the making of the Cold War and the dangers of expansionist foreign policy in Shattered Peace; the shifting balance between governments and markets and the impact of globalization in Commanding Heights; and, the omnipotence of energy on all global affairs in The Quest.
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But The New Map juxtaposes best with The Prize, Yergin’s 1990 Pulitzer Prize-winning book. The Prize established the inextricable connection between oil and modern life, in what the author aptly called “the age of hydrocarbon man.” The New Map recognizes the persistent prominence of fossil fuels, but Yergin also sees new and unsettling tensions emerging. Two early chapters, “Shale Era” and “The Rebalancing of Geopolitics,” anchor this thesis. The current energy revolution, born from new shale fracking technologies, turned the United States into the world’s energy powerhouse almost overnight. Yet that power – and the rebalancing of the global energy order that came with it – raises new and challenging questions about competitive geopolitics, the safety of the new technologies, the impact of traditional energy systems, and disruption caused by the changing climate. The coronavirus pandemic has made these tensions even starker and more urgent.
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The New Map is an important book, but it becomes indispensable in the chapter "China's Map." Here, Yergin upends the chessboard of world politics, as the potential for a new cold war begins to emerge: assertions of sovereignty over the South China Sea, exploitation of oil and gas trade routes, disputed claims to gas and oil deposits…. China’s Belt & Road Initiative appears as not only an effort to reshape the global economy but also to expand geopolitical influence. At the same time, rivalries grow even more complex as Russia pivots toward Beijing.
In a conversation with Dr. Yergin, the American Energy Society’s president, Eric Vettel, noted that he had read Dr. Yergin's first book, Shattered Peace, in an undergraduate course on the history of the Cold War, to which Dr. Yergin replied, "As I was writing The New Map, I couldn’t help but notice that the growing rivalry between the United States and China today has increasing echoes of the origins of the Soviet-American Cold War, which I wrote about decades ago. Yet the picture is made more complicated by how interdependent economically the United States and China have become, even as the rivalries grow." Critics might voice frustration with The New Map because they want to be told what to think. Others may struggle with Yergin’s cautionary realism, which appreciates the surge of technical breakthroughs that put pressure on traditional energy frameworks but views top-down government-led solutions like the Green New Deal with skepticism. The United States may seek 100% renewable energy by 2050 or even 2030, and the European Union may want to be “net zero carbon” by 2050, but Yergin reminds us that these are daunting ambitions. The New Map is not taking sides. It is a mirror for us to see our own ambivalent attachment to and overriding dependence on the traditional energy order, our deep reluctance to embrace the imagined future, the challenges of scale and technology, and the attempts to advance positions and interests with semantics and polemics. Rather than tell us what to think, The New Map challenges us to grapple with the future we are creating. |
About the award
According to Eric Vettel, president of American Energy Society, "There were a lot of great books about energy this year, but Dr. Yergin's legendary contributions to the field, highlighted with the release of The New Map, made this year's selection obvious. We selected him as the Energy Writer of the Year for his intellectual approach, his balanced treatment of competing ideas, his extraordinary grasp of an enormous subject, his methodical defense of an ambitious thesis with massive amounts of data, his masterful storytelling skills, and in recognition of a lifetime of literary achievement.”
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About the author
Daniel Yergin is one of the most influential voices in energy, international politics, and economics in the world. The vice chairman of IHS Markit, Yergin is the author of a number of books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, which became a number one bestseller and was made into an acclaimed PBS/BBC series.
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© Cary Hazlegrove
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Other awardees
2023: Philip Verleger and Kim A. Pederson »
2022: Amy Harder » 2021: Katharine Hayhoe » 2019: Vaclav Smil » 2018: Nathaniel Rich » 2017: Meghan O'Sullivan » 2016: Mark P. Mills » 2015: Coral Davenport » |
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