ENERGY

A Human History

By Richard Rhodes

480 pp. Simon & Schuster. $30.

Early in Richard Rhodes’s new book, “Energy: A Human History,” we hear of a prominent citizen using colorful language to lament the state of his polluted city and urge his government to shut down industry or move it elsewhere: “If there be a resemblance of hell upon earth, it is in this volcano [on] a foggy day.” Though this could easily apply to modern-day Beijing, the speaker here is John Evelyn, a wealthy horticulturalist and one of the founders of the scientific Royal Society of London — and he’s complaining about London in 1659.

Evelyn’s petition is one of countless stories that elevate “Energy.” In this meticulously researched work, Rhodes brings his fascination with engineers, scientists and inventors along as he presents an often underappreciated history: four centuries through the evolution of energy and how we use it. He focuses on the introduction of each new energy source, and the discovery and gradual refinement of technologies that eventually made them dominant. The result is a book that is as much about innovation and ingenuity as it is about wood, coal, kerosene or oil.

Whether he is explaining what is meant by the octane rating of fuel or the way Volta’s pile — the first battery — worked, Rhodes makes dry and often technical subjects not just digestible, but a pleasure to consume. As has been the case in his other books, he draws on the stories of people familiar to the casual reader — like Henry Ford, James Watt and Benjamin Franklin. But Rhodes’s real emphasis is on highlighting lesser-known individuals, including Benjamin Silliman Jr., a Yale chemist who distilled oil and confirmed its utility, and Arie Haagen-Smit, another chemist, who set aside his work isolating the flavor of pineapples in order to ascertain the true source of the smog in Los Angeles.