A Marginal Revolution Best Book of the Year
Winner of the Shulman Book Prize

A noted expert on Russian energy argues that despite Europe’s geopolitical rivalries, natural gas and deals based on it unite Europe’s nations in mutual self-interest.

Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet empire, the West faces a new era of East–West tensions. Any vision of a modern Russia integrated into the world economy and aligned in peaceful partnership with a reunited Europe has abruptly vanished.

Two opposing narratives vie to explain the strategic future of Europe, one geopolitical and one economic, and both center on the same resource: natural gas. In The Bridge, Thane Gustafson, an expert on Russian oil and gas, argues that the political rivalries that capture the lion’s share of media attention must be viewed alongside multiple business interests and differences in economic ideologies. With a dense network of pipelines linking Europe and Russia, natural gas serves as a bridge that unites the region through common interests.

Tracking the economic and political role of natural gas through several countries—Russia and Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway—The Bridge details both its history and its likely future. As Gustafson suggests, there are reasons for optimism, but whether the “gas bridge” can ultimately survive mounting geopolitical tensions and environmental challenges remains to be seen.

Our future depends on what we do about energy. This stark fact, clear since the oil embargo of the 1970s, has been hammered home through crisis after crisis—and yet our government has failed to come up with a coherent energy policy. John Deutch, with his extraordinary mix of technical, scholarly, corporate, and governmental expertise in the realm of energy, is uniquely qualified to explain what has stood in the way of progress on this most pressing issue. His book is at once an eye-opening history of the muddled practices that have passed for energy policy over the past thirty years, and a cogent account of what we can and should learn from so many breakdowns of strategy and execution.

Three goals drive any comprehensive energy policy: develop an effective approach to climate change; transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy technologies; and increase the efficiency of energy use to reduce dependence on imported oil. Why has every effort in this direction eventually fallen short? Deutch identifies the sources of this failure in our popular but unrealistic goals, our competing domestic and international agendas, and our poor analysis in planning, policy-making, and administering government programs. Most significantly, The Crisis in Energy Policy clarifies the need to link domestic and global considerations, as well as the critical importance of integrating technical, economic, and political factors. Written for experts and citizens alike, this book will strengthen the hand of anyone concerned about the future of energy policy.

We are in the midst of an energy revolution, led by the United States. As the world’s greatest producer of natural gas moves aggressively to expand its exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), America stands poised to become an energy superpower—an unanticipated development with far-reaching implications for the international order. Agnia Grigas drills deep into today’s gas markets to uncover the forces and trends transforming the geopolitics of gas.

The boom in shale gas production in the United States, the growth of global LNG trade, and the buildup of gas transport infrastructure worldwide have so transformed the traditional markets that natural gas appears to be on the verge of becoming a true global commodity. Traditional suppliers like Russia, whose energy-poor neighbors were dependent upon its gas exports and pipelines, are feeling the foundations of the old order shifting beneath their feet. Grigas examines how this new reality is rewriting the conventional rules of intercontinental gas trade and realigning strategic relations among the United States, the European Union, Russia, China, and beyond.

In the near term, Moscow’s political influence will erode as the Russian gas giant Gazprom loses share in its traditional markets while its efforts to pivot eastward to meet China’s voracious energy needs will largely depend on Beijing’s terms. In this new geopolitics of gas, the United States will enjoy opportunities but also face challenges in leveraging its newfound energy clout to reshape relations with both European states and rising Asian powers.

While research demonstrates how Indigenous populations have been disproportionately affected by the global nuclear production complex, less attention has been given to tactics that have successfully resisted such projects. Danielle Endres’s Nuclear Decolonization shifts the conversation around nuclear colonialism in important ways, offering an account of how the Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, and Skull Valley Goshute peoples and nations prevented two high-level nuclear waste sites from being built on their lands. 

Using a decolonial approach, Endres highlights two sets of rhetorical tactics—Indigenous Lands rhetorics and national interest rhetorics—used to fight nuclear colonialism. The book reframes nuclear decolonization as fundamentally a struggle for the return of Indigenous lands while also revealing how Native activists selectively move between Indigenous nationhood and US citizenship in order to resist settler decision-making. Working at the intersection of Indigenous antinuclear advocacy, Indigenized environmental justice, and decolonization, Nuclear Decolonization centers Native activism and voices while amplifying the power and resilience of Indigenous peoples and nations. 

Contributors: Alba Alexander, Megan Houston, Dennis R. Judd, Cynthia Klein-Banai, William C. Kling, Howard A. Learner, David A. McDonald, David C. Perry, Emily Stiehl, Anthony Townsend, Natalia Villamizar-Duarte, and Moira Zellner.