Awards

• Short-listed for PEN Center USA Literary Award for Research Nonfiction 2017

Overview

In 1956, geophysicist and Shell Oil researcher Marion King Hubbert forecast that American oil production would peak surprisingly soon and decline steadily thereafter. Hubbert's prediction outraged the architects of the US oil industry at the time but it was largely correct. Amid a twenty-first century shale boom, Hubbert's logic remains a source of debate.Richly researched, The Oracle of Oil rescues the history of a man who shocked the scientific community with his brilliance, eccentricity and controversy. Mason Inman shows Hubbert was a man of his era: a time of great intellectual ferment and discovery tinged by dark undercurrents of intellectual witch hunts. A portrait of a man whose prescient ideas about sustainability still resonate today, The Oracle of Oil looks to the past to find a guiding philosophy for our energy future.

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Reviews

The Oracleof Oilis a masterful telling ofHubbert s life and ideas, writtenby journalist Mason Inman, a knowledgeable and gracefulstoryteller.--Charles Hall Predicting peak oil (04/08/2016)

This is a remarkable account of a remarkable man and for that matter of a remarkable moment in American history, when we began to realize there were limits to our endless expansion.--Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

... well written, deeply researched and rich in anecdote - Hubbert's character and his intellectual achievements sing out. -- New Scientist

"""... well written, deeply researched and rich in anecdote – Hubbert’s character and his intellectual achievements sing out."" -- New Scientist"

Author Information

Mason Inman is an award-winning journalist who focuses on energy and climate issues. He has written for National Geographic News, Science, Nature, and The Economist. He lives in Oakland, California.

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