Customer Reviews

Blackout: How the Electric Industry Exploits America

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I recently picked up this book because I have an interest in the Electric Utility industry. Boy, was I disappointed. You have to hand it to Mr. Weil - he takes on a broad array of topics, but he never really does justice to any of them. Maybe a good editor could have focused his attention on one aspect, but it seems this is more of a self-published vanity book than a true fact-checked volume. If you want a quick overview of a lot of topics and don't care about details then this might be a decent book, but it really pales in comparison to many other. For instance, if you want to know what was going on with Enron - read "The Smartest Guys in the Room". If you want to history of regulation (and deregulation) in the US and elsewhere, I would suggest "Power Play: The Fight to Control the World's Electricity" by Sharon Beder or "Power Loss: The Origins of Deregulation and Restructing in the American Electric Utility System" by Richard Hirsch. There are countless books on Samuel Insull and also some good accounts of the WPPSS debacle. If you decide to pick this up anyway - be ready to question the logic and investigate other sources before siding with Mr. Weil...although he has some good points it seems at times to be coincidental with the evidence he cites (or doesn't bother to cite).