Reviewed by:

• When They Hid the Fire: A History of Electricity and Invisible Energy in America by Daniel French
• Michael Kay (bio)

Although subtitled as a history of electricity, When They Hid the Fire is more a history of perceptions of and attitudes towards energy production and use. Daniel French provides a concise and interesting summary of energy use in the United States, structured around how the source and use of energy is understood in American culture—and how source and use have become gradually separated over time. This process started with steam power and was exacerbated by centralized electrical supply, with disastrous environmental consequences.

French's emphasis on the abstraction of energy—meaning the distancing, both physically and psychologically, of energy production from energy consumption—provides an interesting perspective on the spread of electricity, [End Page 1252] although he does not spend much time developing this. His other key argument is that American culture incorporated an attitude of "energy exceptionalism," which led Americans to expect unlimited energy use as a right, with no environmental consequences.

His seven chapters move quite quickly from the seventeenth century, with the arrival of the first English colonists, to the 1920s. The first four chapters cover wood, coal, concerns about smoke, and steam power. In these chapters, French's treatment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries does not fully acknowledge or examine the impact of slave labor on American expectations regarding the availability of free sources of energy. The last three chapters focus on conceptions of electricity as a mystery "too complicated for the public to grasp" and the beginnings of electrification, including the increasing distance that centralized electrical supply created in the American mind between the consumption of electricity and its (still coal-fueled) generation (p. 86).

Methodologically, French chooses not to spend time exploring either consumer resistance to new technologies, particularly electricity, or how his topic fits within the related, broader theme of the persistence of older technologies alongside newer innovations. These could have enriched his treatment of the topic. His focus is also more on producers than on consumers, and we rarely hear users' voices. This feels like a gap, particularly because one of French's key aims is to identify how perceptions of energy were changing in American culture. To support this aim, French instead brings many examples from politicians. He also relies heavily on literary figures, an approach that reflects that of Leo Marx's The Machine in the Garden (a key influence on this book). While these examples do support his points, it feels as though French is only examining "a" culture; he doesn't break down the complicated concept of culture/s or talk about the diversity of cultures within American society. He treats the idea of "American culture" as unproblematic. And indeed French's focus is firmly on the United States, and might have benefited from international comparisons (for example with Canada, where developments in hydroelectricity were being followed closely by observers in the United States).

French's main contribution to the extensive literature on American energy history is his ability to craft a provocative environmental narrative in a concise way, covering a long time period, and synthesizing a lot of relevant existing literature in the field. Although there is some use of historical newspapers and a couple of long lists of interesting patents to support points about technological innovations to control smoke or provide cleaner energy sources, these serve to illustrate his main points, rather than being the building blocks of his argument (p. 38, 56). He does not use many archival sources. It would have been interesting, for example, to see a closer analysis of the patents included in the book.

As French's book covers a lot of ground quickly in an accessible way, [End Page 1253] this makes it a good candidate for an undergraduate or introductory reading on the history of American energy technologies. The book will also be of interest to environmental and literary historians. It is engaging and invites international and cross-cultural comparisons...

审核人：

• 当他们藏火时： Daniel French撰写的美国电力和无形能源史
• 迈克尔·凯（生物）

尽管被称为电力史，但当他们躲在火中时，却更多地是关于能源生产和使用的观念和态度的历史。丹尼尔·法兰奇（Daniel French）提供了美国能源使用的简明有趣的摘要，围绕美国文化如何理解能源的来源和使用以及如何随着时间的推移逐渐区分了来源和使用进行了概述。此过程始于蒸汽动力，而集中供电加剧了这一过程，对环境造成了灾难性的后果。

法国人强调能源的抽象，即从能量消耗上使能量生产在物理上和心理上都与日俱增，这对电力的传播提出了有趣的观点，[End Page 1252]尽管他并没有花费太多时间来开发这种能源。他的另一个主要论点是，美国文化融合了“能源例外论”的态度，这使美国人期望能源使用不受限制地成为一项权利，而不会造成环境后果。

从十七世纪第一批英国殖民者的到来，到1920年代，他的七章发展很快。前四章介绍木材，煤炭，有关烟雾和蒸汽动力的问题。在这些章节中，法国人对18世纪和19世纪的对待并没有完全承认或检验奴隶劳动对美国人对免费能源供应的期望的影响。前三章重点讨论电的概念，它是一个“公众难以理解的谜”之谜和电气化的开始，包括集中式电力供应在美国脑海中在电力消耗及其（静煤）之间的距离越来越大。 （第86页）。

从方法上讲，法国人选择不花时间探索消费者对新技术（尤其是电力）的抵制，或者他的话题如何适应旧技术与新创新的持久性相关的更广泛主题。这些本可以丰富他对该主题的处理。他的重点还更多地放在生产者而不是消费者上，我们很少听到用户的声音。感觉上有差距，尤其是因为法国人的主要目标之一是确定能源观念在美国文化中是如何变化的。为了支持该目标，法语为政治家带来了许多例子。他还高度依赖文学人物，这种方法反映了利奥·马克思的《花园里的机器》（这本书的关键影响力）。这些例子确实支持了他的观点，但似乎法国人只是在研究“一种”文化。他不会破坏复杂的文化概念，也不会谈论美国社会内部文化的多样性。他认为“美国文化”的想法毫无问题。的确，法国的重点确实坚定地集中在美国，并且可能已经从国际比较中受益（例如与加拿大的比较，加拿大的水力发电发展受到美国观察家的密切关注）。

法国对有关美国能源历史的大量文献的主要贡献是，他能够以简洁的方式撰写具有争议性的环境叙事，涵盖很长一段时间，并综合了该领域现有的许多相关文献。尽管有一些历史报纸和一些有趣的专利清单在使用，以支持有关控制烟尘或提供更清洁能源的技术创新的要点，但这些只是说明他的要点，而不是他的论点的基础（第38、56页）。他没有使用很多档案资料。例如，对本书中包含的专利进行更仔细的分析可能会很有趣。

由于French的书以通俗易懂的方式迅速涵盖了许多领域，[End Page 1253]使其成为有关美国能源技术历史的本科生或入门级阅读的不错选择。这本书还将引起环境和文学史学家的兴趣。它吸引人，并邀请国际和跨文化比较...