The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and the Industrial Revolution

by Rolf Peter Sieferle

The historical transition from the agrarian solar energy regime to the use of fossil energy has fuelled the industrial transformation of the last 200 years. The author argues that the analysis of historical energy systems provides an explanation for different social formations because availability of free energy is the framework within which socio-metabolic processes can take place. This explains why the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, where coal was readily available and firewood already depleted or difficult to transport, whereas Germany, with its huge forests next to rivers, was much longer dependent on a traditional solar energy regime. An earlier version of this landmark text was published in German in 1982. It has been thoroughly revised and updated by the author and now appears in English for the first time.

Genres: History, Economics, Politics

Hardcover

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Rolf Peter Sieferle was a German historian known for applying the methodology of the social sciences to contemporary topics including ecological sustainability and social capital. He was a pioneer scholar of German environmental history. His work was wide ranging, addressing German conservatism around the period of the First World War, Karl Marx, and the fall of Communism. He was an advisor on climate change to the Angela Merkel government.

Sieferle came of age with the generation of 1968 as a youthful Socialist. By the 1990s, he was increasingly critical of what he viewed as naïve idealism. During the 2015 European migrant crisis, Sieferle wrote, “A society that can no longer distinguish between itself and the forces that would dissolve it is living morally beyond its means,” causing the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to describe him as “embittered, humorless, ever more isolated”. He committed suicide on 17 September 2016.

Reviews

[Jason Zuzga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is possibly the most important book I've ever read -- Impossible to see the world as it is around us as stemming from the chance coincidence of wood shortage and coal by sea explained clearly and astonishingly.

[Alfred · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Stellen wir graphisch den Verbrauch fossiler Energie in historischen Zeiträumen dar, so ergibt sich das Bild einer Nadel auf der Zeitachse: Bis zum Beginn der Industriellen Revolution ist der Verbrauch praktisch null, dann folgt ein kurzer, sehr steiler Anstieg bis zu einem Maximum, dann ein etwas flacherer Abstieg, und für die nächsten Jahrtausende wird der Verbrauch wieder gleich Null sein. In der sehr lang fristigen Perspektive ergibt sich so tatsächlich das Bild eines kurzen fossilen Intermezzos."

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely not a light read. However, I learned a great deal about energy systems and the origins of the first industrial revolution. A must-read for those of you (and I know there are hundreds of you, ;)) looking to learn about social-metabolism.