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The Quest
- Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 29 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
This long-awaited successor to Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Prize provides an essential, overarching narrative of global energy, the principal engine of geopolitical and economic change.
A master storyteller as well as a leading energy expert, Daniel Yergin continues the riveting story begun in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Prize. In The Quest, Yergin shows us how energy is an engine of global political and economic change and conflict, in a story that spans the energies on which our civilization has been built and the new energies that are competing to replace them.
The Quest tells the inside stories, tackles the tough questions, and reveals surprising insights about coal, electricity, and natural gas. He explains how climate change became a great issue and leads readers through the rebirth of renewable energies, energy independence, and the return of the electric car. Epic in scope and never more timely, The Quest vividly reveals the decisions, technologies, and individuals that are shaping our future.
Critic reviews
“It is a cause for celebration that Yergin has returned with his perspective on a very different landscape...[I]t is impossible to think of a better introduction to the essentials of energy in the 21st century. The Quest is...the definitive guide to how we got here.” (The Financial Times)
“A sprawling story richly textured with original material, quirky details and amusing anecdotes...” (Wall Street Journal)
"[An] important book...a valuable primer on the basic issues that define energy today. Yergin is careful in his analysis and never polemical.... Despite that, The Quest makes it clear that energy policy is not on the right course anywhere in the world and that everyone - on the left and the right, in the developed and the developing world - need to rethink strongly held positions." (Fareed Zakaria, The New York Times Book Review)
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- By: Seth M. Siegel
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Let There Be Water illustrates how Israel can serve as a model for the United States and countries everywhere by showing how to blunt the worst of the coming water calamities. Even with 60 percent of its country made of desert, Israel has not only solved its water problem; it also has an abundance of water. Israel even supplies water to its neighbors - the Palestinians and the Kingdom of Jordan - every day.
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More water politics story than water technology
- By normal person on 04-12-21
By: Seth M. Siegel
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Connectography
- Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
- By: Parag Khanna
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets.
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Fluffy and Pretentious
- By Kurt Emery Matson on 12-01-16
By: Parag Khanna
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Dealing with China
- An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower
- By: Henry M. Paulson
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 18 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When Hu Jintao, China's then vice president, came to visit the New York Stock Exchange and Ground Zero in 2002, he asked Hank Paulson to be his guide. It was a testament to the pivotal role that Goldman Sachs played in helping China experiment with private enterprise. In Dealing with China, the best-selling author of On the Brink draws on his unprecedented access to both the political and business leaders of modern China to answer several key questions.
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A Valuable Book on China
- By Michael Moore on 09-04-15
By: Henry M. Paulson
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The Miracle
- The Epic Story of Asia's Quest for Wealth
- By: Michael Schuman
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning nine countries, filled with heroic tales of bold decisions and self-sacrifice, and probing vast historical undercurrents, "The Miracle" takes readers inside private boardroom meetings, heated business negotiations, factory floors, and presidential cabinet sessions for a behind-the-scenes look at the events that shaped Asia's economic ascent - and will shape the world in the century to come.
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Packed with stories of both bussinesses and gov
- By Roman on 11-21-12
By: Michael Schuman
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The Dragon's Gift
- The Real Story of China in Africa
- By: Deborah Brautigam
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows. But China's tradition of secrecy about its aid fueled rumors and speculation, making it difficult to gauge the risks and opportunities provided by China's growing embrace. This well-timed book, by one of the world's leading experts, provides the first comprehensive account of China's aid and economic cooperation overseas. Deborah Brautigam tackles the myths and realities, explaining what the Chinese are doing, how they do it, how much aid they give, and how it all fits into their "going global" strategy.
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The Book Is Too Much To Digest
- By DING MING YING 丁明英 on 05-15-20
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Capitalism in America
- A History
- By: Alan Greenspan, Adrian Wooldridge
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 16 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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From the legendary former Fed Chairman and the acclaimed Economist writer and historian, the full, epic story of America's evolution from a small patchwork of threadbare colonies to the most powerful engine of wealth and innovation the world has ever seen.
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Explains a lot
- By Scott on 02-18-19
By: Alan Greenspan, and others
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The Post-American World 2.0
- By: Fareed Zakaria
- Narrated by: Fareed Zakaria
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the New York Times and international best seller, revised and expanded with a new afterword. This is the essential update of Fareed Zakaria's analysis about America and its shifting position in world affairs. In this new edition, Zakaria makes sense of the rapidly changing global landscape. With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, he draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past 500 years - the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States - to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the rise of the rest.
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S/B req reading for every man, woman and child...
- By Kopernicus on 10-20-11
By: Fareed Zakaria
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The End of the Asian Century
- War, Stagnation, and the Risks to the World's Most Dynamic Region
- By: Michael R. Auslin
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Historian and geopolitical expert Michael Auslin argues that far from being a cohesive powerhouse, Asia is a fractured region threatened by stagnation and instability. Here he provides a comprehensive account of the economic, military, political, and demographic risks that bedevil half of our world, arguing that Asia, working with the United States, has a unique opportunity to avert catastrophe - but only if it acts boldly.
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Wake up Call
- By Daniel B. on 07-07-17
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The World Turned Upside Down
- America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership
- By: Clyde Prestowitz
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 13 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.
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Informative and engaging
- By Christopher P Pratt on 02-28-21
By: Clyde Prestowitz
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It's Better Than It Looks
- By: Gregg Easterbrook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 14 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people who pay attention to the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more. Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising.
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Too political
- By Anonymous User on 07-12-18
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Not his best: Overly broad, kind of sloppy
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major let down
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No more accents, please!
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Explains a lot!
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major let down
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Flashpoints
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Over the course of more than three decades as an American diplomat, William J. Burns played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time - from the bloodless end of the Cold War to the collapse of post-Cold War relations with Putin’s Russia, from post-9/11 tumult in the Middle East to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. In The Back Channel, Burns recounts, with novelistic detail and incisive analysis, some of the seminal moments of his career.
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A Definitive look at Diplomacy
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One Mighty and Irresistible Tide
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The idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants is at the core of the American narrative. But in 1924, Congress instituted a system of ethnic quotas so stringent that it choked off large-scale immigration for decades, sharply curtailing arrivals from Southern and Eastern Europe and outright banning those from nearly all of Asia. In a riveting narrative filled with a fascinating cast of characters, Jia Lynn Yang recounts how lawmakers, activists, and presidents from Truman through LBJ worked relentlessly to abolish the 1924 law.
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Good overview
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Fossil Future
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For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing—including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people. And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency”, reality has proven Epstein right.
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Strongly Recommend
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By: Alex Epstein
What listeners say about The Quest
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Joshua Kim
- 05-06-12
Best nonfiction book of 2011
2011 was a great year for nonfiction, but no book comes close to The Quest for claiming top honors.
Everything we do depends on energy. Every industry, including higher education, ultimately is possible due to energy. Without energy, we could not teach or do research, heat our classrooms and offices, or cool our data centers. If you walked to campus today (or worked at home) that is terrific, but most of us relied on gasoline to power our cars for our commute. Higher ed may not be like the airlines, where fuel is the largest expense (ours is labor), but we are no less dependent on energy to run our business than Southwest airlines.
The past, present, and future of worldwide energy is a big topic, one that requires a big book. The Quest is 816 pages, none of which are wasted. This is an efficient book. Yergin manages to keep the narrative moving along without skimping on either the stories or the numbers.
The Quest systematically examines every major source of energy, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar and wind. The origins, technology, sustainability, and personalities attached to each of these major energy sources is given a complete and balanced treatment.
Readers looking either for an indictment or defense of our carbon or renewable fuel sources will be disappointed, as Yergin is scrupulously even-handed and non-polemical. Energy turns out to be too important, and too complicated, to be reduced to simple narratives and slogans. Rather, Yergin manages to consider the role of energy in the environment as well as the economy, while making strong (and actionable) policy recommendations for a sustainable energy future.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Lance
- 03-16-12
A prize awaits for thoughtful readers....
Had a difficult time following the first part of this book as I wasn't familiar with the characters / players / history of the patchwork of states that have emerged since the fall of communism. Perhaps I missed it or perhaps its just impossible to tell the outrageous stories contained in The Prize about powerful people still living. There is probably alot to fear from those people. I would bet my last gold deutsche mark the stories that will one day be told will make this period of time very interesting indeed. Unfortunately I didn't find the first half that interesting, though I really need to sit down with a map and some additional history books to gain a better appreciation. Certainly the role of Russia and its satellites in the world today is vastly underrated. The discussion of Putin and Europe alone is worthwhile enough to justify reading the first 40% of the book.
Really hit stride when discussing the US energy markets and the competing energy alternatives. The book is ambitious and perhaps has too much ground to cover. I know something about these markets so I looked forward to hearing what Daniel Yergin had to say. I have to say I am really impressed by the author. Did he persuade anyone with this book? Probably not as the book is really a quick synopsis of key items and drivers for the energy industry in the recent past and foreseeable future. All as seen and interpreted by Daniel Yergin. I really trust his judgement, but clearly readers who disagree with the fundamental view of the author may not enjoy this book as much. Personally I think if you disagree with Yergin you should benefit from his perspective as he may give you new facts and/or a different perspective. I'm sure certain groups of readers such as peak oilers will disagree however. Highly recommended. Not as easy a read as the Prize... so I used a little p in my headline... still worthy of 5 stars however.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 07-13-13
Lots of Facts, Little Analysis
This book was pretty good, with very good narration, but it was a bit dry for my taste. The book is loaded with historical information and factoids about the energy industry, energy production technology and climate change, but it seems to me to lack the perspective, depth, and analysis of a good history and lacks the details of a good technical primer. The book takes a non-investigative journalistic tack and the author seems to go to extremes to not expose his own point of view (which is, of course, impossible). The author’s views come through, but only through subtle framing of ideas. I found this a little insidious. I prefer reading many books with many different, yet strong and clear, points of view. The author glosses over many important issues, then presents a bunch of cute anecdotes. The little science presented is weak at best. A bunch of facts may be somewhat interesting but more scrutiny and analysis would make this a much stronger book. Having a book on energy without even mentioning fusion seems odd to me. I learned quite a bit more from Global Warming: Global Threat.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Doug
- 01-07-12
Comprehensive, neutral, vivid
Covers all aspects of our modern energy situation--scientific, technological, environmental, political, economic--in a global narrative history that presents every side of every issue in a fair and straightforward way. Full of compelling stories and fascinating facts.
This book is foundational for understanding the global economic and political challenges of the 21st century, because every aspect of our modern way of life depends on reliable and sustainable energy.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Andy
- 12-04-11
solid on the history of the modern energy industry
Fascinating journey through the development of the modern energy industry and the story of what led to the "climate change" conversation. Nothing promised nor delivered on where it is all headed.
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3 people found this helpful
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- William
- 01-15-13
Good facts, weak story
What did you like best about The Quest? What did you like least?
The author is clearly knowledgeable about the modern oil industry; there were plenty of facts in the book I did not know. However, the book fails in three regards. First, the author displays little understanding of the context of events outside of specific oil-related news. His analysis rarely goes beyond the headline level, and contains no discussion of different perspectives on and reasons for events. Second, the author cherry picks sources to make his point. For instance, his certainty that the Iraq War was based on WMDs rather than, say, oil, is back up by sources ranging from George W. Bush to... Laura Bush. Evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons is provided by "some Arabs say." Finally, the book has no actual story to it. Each chapter deals independently with a facet of or event in modern oil history, with no connection or even transition between them. As such, there is no story to follow.
Thus, the book is good on its oil facts, but poor on context, explanation and story.
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- Arturo
- 11-15-11
Anyone who has driven a car should read this book.
If you have driven a car or turned on a light bulb and are interested in how things are powered, you should consider reading this book.
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- Scott A Beck
- 10-03-23
Excellent follow up to original The Prize
Excellent read and insightful followup to The Prize. I’d recommend anyone interested in energy information to read both for the history and global market implications.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-29-18
A must read for anyone in the oil and gas business
It is without a doubt the quintessential first book that must be read for anyone working in the petrochemical industry. If only as a fan of history, it should be a trophy on one’s bookshelf. I’ve listened to it multiple times, and it gets better each time.
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- Nhlanhla
- 03-21-24
Educational and interesting
Educational and interesting without getting political or opinionated. I enjoyed the topic and the reader.
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