OMI Wellbeauty - Shop now
Buy new:
Ships from: Windflower Bookstore
Sold by: Windflower Bookstore
Ships from
Windflower Bookstore
Windflower Bookstore
Ships from
Windflower Bookstore
Returns
Returnable until Jan 31, 2026
Returnable until Jan 31, 2026
For the 2025 holiday season, eligible items purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2025 can be returned until January 31, 2026.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less Pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less See less
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from and sold by ThriftBooks-Phoenix.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the authors

Paul Roberts
Follow
Paul Roberts
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

END OF OIL Paperback – April 5, 2005

by Paul Roberts (Author)

Purchase options and add-ons

Petroleum is now so deeply entrenched in our economy, our politics, and our personal expectations that even modest efforts to phase it out are fought tooth and nail by the most powerful forces in the world: companies and governments that depend on oil revenues; the developing nations that see oil as the only means to industrial success; and a Western middle class that refuses to modify its energy-dependent lifestyle. But within thirty years, by even conservative estimates, we will have burned our way through most of the oil that is easily accessible. And well before then, the side effects of an oil-based society—economic volatility, geopolitical conflict, and the climate-changing impact of hydrocarbon pollution—will render fossil fuels an all but unacceptable solution. How will we break our addiction to oil? And what will we use in its place to maintain a global economy and political system that are entirely reliant on cheap, readily available energy?

Brilliantly reported from around the globe, The End of Oil brings the world situation into fresh and dramatic focus for business and general readers alike. Roberts talks to both oil optimists and oil pessimists, delves deep into the economics and politics of oil, considers the promises and pitfalls of alternatives, and shows that, although the world energy system has begun its epoch-defining transition, disruption and violent dislocation are almost assured if we do not take a more proactive stance. With the topicality and readability of Fast Food Nation and the scope and trenchant analysis of Guns, Germs, and Steel, this is a vitally important book for the new century.
Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    412 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Mariner Books
  4. Publication date
    April 5, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1.03 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0618562117
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0618562114
Next slide of product details
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

This dense compendium explores a troubling paradox: the more energy we use, the richer we become, but spiralling consumption also speeds us closer to the economic havoc that will result from the depletion of oil and gas reserves. For political, cultural, and economic reasons (our current energy infrastructure is worth ten trillion dollars), alternatives such as hydrogen, solar, and wind power resist widespread development. Roberts's outspoken but even-handed account closes with four crystal-ball scenarios. In the rosiest, breakthroughs in renewable energy spur a decline in fossil-fuel use; in the direst, Arab resentment at the overthrow of Saddam Hussein leads to the downfall of the Saudi and Kuwaiti regimes, the price of oil rises to fifty dollars a barrel, and the unprepared American economy is left in tatters.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Review

"May very well become for fossil fuels what Fast Food Nation was to food or High and Mighty to SUVs." Publishers Weekly

"Brilliant" The Baltimore Sun

"A stunning piece of work -- perhaps the best single book ever produced about our energy economy and its environmental implications." New York Review of Books

"An extraordinarily clear and powerful analysis of what is arguably the most serious crisis our industrial society has ever faced." Boston Herald

Product details

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Previous page
  1. Paul Roberts

    Paul Roberts

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Paul Roberts is the author of The End of Oil, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award in 2005. He has written about resource economics and politics for numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, and lectures frequently on business and environmental issues. He lives in Washington State.

    See more on the author's page
  2. Paul Roberts

    Paul Roberts

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Author News: "The Impulse Society" long-listed for the 2015 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.

    * * * *

    A journalist since 1983, Paul Roberts writes and lectures frequently on the complex interplay of business, technology, psychology, and the natural world. His most recent book, "The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification," examines the accelerating and increasingly intimate -- and troubling -- relationship between the marketplace and the Self. Check out the book's official website at http://theimpulsesociety.wordpress.com/

    He also blogs at Psychology Today. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-impulse-society

    The Impulse Society follows on the success of two earlier books - The End of Food (2008), about the global food economy; and The End of Oil (2004), which explored the challenges of our fossil-fuel economy. Roberts work has written for The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The (UK) Guardian and has appeared in Slate, USA Today, The New Republic, Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, Rolling Stone, and Outside magazine.

    Roberts has delivered lectures and keynotes to a variety of organizations, including the World Economic Forum (Davos), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Affairs Council. He lives in Washington State.

    You can follow him on Twitter @pauledroberts.

    See more on the author's page
Next page