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Panic at the Pump

The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s

Meg Jacobs

Hill and Wang

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ISBN10: 0809075075
ISBN13: 9780809075072

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400 Pages

$20.00

CA$25.99

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In Panic at the Pump, Meg Jacobs shows how a succession of crises beginning with the 1973 Arab oil embargo prompted American politicians to seek energy independence, and how their failure to do so shaped the world we live in. When the crisis hit, the Democratic Party was divided, with older New Deal liberals who prized access to affordable energy squaring off against young environmentalists who pushed for conservation. Meanwhile, conservative Republicans challenged both kinds of governmental activism and argued that there would be no energy crisis if the government got out of the way and let the market work. The result was a stalemate in Washington and panic across the country: miles-long gas lines, Big Oil conspiracy theories, even violent truckers' strikes.

Jacobs argues that the energy crises of the 1970s became, for many Americans, an important object lesson in the limitations of governmental power. Washington proved unable to design a national energy policy, and the inability to develop resources and conserve only made the United States more dependent on oil from abroad. As we face the repercussions of a changing climate, a volatile oil market, and continued unrest in the Middle East, Panic at the Pump is an instructive account of a formative period in American political history.

Reviews

Praise for Panic at the Pump

"Panic at the Pump is a thoughtful tour of an era we would rather not think about, carefully retracing the economics that made the United States dependent on oil imports, and the crises that made that dependence so painful."—Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times Book Review

"In her well-researched book Panic at the Pump, Meg Jacobs takes us back to the twin oil shocks of the 1970s . . . It was, Jacobs argues persuasively, a time that transformed American politics . . . [she] gives us a rich chronicle of this period . . . At a time when political candidates are bickering over how to make America great again, there is much to recommend in this book."Steven Mufson, The Washington Post

"Wonderfully insightful . . . Making excellent use of a plethora of published and unpublished sources, Jacobs deftly draws together the manifold strands that made up the U.S. response to the oil shocks that began with the Arab oil embargo of 1973 and continued for the rest of the decade . . . Jacobs convincingly demonstrates its long-term consequences . . . [and] succeeds masterfully in explaining both the way the oil crises of the 1970s unfolded and how they helped to shape subsequent developments, domestic as well as foreign . . . Panic at the Pump is without question an important book that contributes mightily to our understanding of the modern American state, the U.S. political system, and contemporary U.S. foreign policy."—Mary Ann Heiss, American Historical Review

"In this intriguing and important book, Meg Jacobs successfully traces the roots of much of our current political and economic life to the energy debates of the 1970s. Anyone seeking to understand the way we live now will do well to consult Jacobs's incisive account of a decade at once remote and resonant."—Jon Meacham, author of Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George H. W. Bush

"The energy crisis of the 1970s created a political perfect storm, hastening the crisis of an already divided Democratic Party and clearing the way for the age of Ronald Reagan. In retelling that story, Meg Jacobs’s wonderfully detailed and lucid Panic at the Pump is a major contribution to late twentieth century U.S. history, describing a convergence of social and economic as well as political forces that transformed the nation, with resounding effects down to our own times."—Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy and The Age of Reagan

"Meg Jacobs has written a lively, incisive, and important narrative of how the energy crisis flummoxed presidents and policy-makers of the 1970s and 1980s and eroded the public's faith in government."Jonathan Alter, author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

"Meg Jacobs’s Panic at the Pump offers a powerful account of how the energy crisis of the 1970s transformed American politics. With long gas lines, violent trucker strikes, and contentious debates in Washington about regulation, almost every American who lived through the era felt the weight of this challenge and vividly remembers the fears it provoked. Jacob's book will be eye opening for those who want to learn about what actually happened. This riveting narrative is a must-read for policymakers, reporters, and every American citizen who seeks to understand how the nation can achieve a stronger national energy policy."—Henry Waxman, former congressman and author of The Waxman Report

"Through copious research and clear, vivid writing, Meg Jacobs has made a persuasive case that the politics of oil is the key to understanding a generation’s worth of high-level American diplomacy and economic policy. In so doing she makes our recent history feel absolutely fresh, and absolutely relevant in meeting our next set of challenges."—Nicholas Lemann, professor of journalism and dean emeritus at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

"In Panic at the Pump, Jacobs weaves together history, politics, and culture with unusual narrative skill to engage the reader in a good story while explaining why U.S. energy policy has so often fallen flat on its face."—Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs, Princeton University, and co-editor of Climatic Change

Reviews from Goodreads

BOOK EXCERPTS

Read an Excerpt


Introduction: An Energy Pearl Harbor


 


FORTY YEARS AGO, Americans were suffering from what contemporaries called “the energy crisis,” a crisis that in many ways defined the decade of...

About the author

Meg Jacobs

Meg Jacobs teaches history and public affairs at Princeton University. Her first book, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (2005), won the Organization of American Historians’ Ellis W. Hawley Prize, as well as the New England Historical Association’s James P. Hanlan Book Award. She is also the coauthor of Conservatives in Power: The Reagan Years, 1981–1989 (2010).

Visit Meg Jacobs's faculty profile