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Historians investigate the relationships between film, culture, and
energy. American Energy Cinema explores how Hollywood movies have
portrayed energy from the early film era to the present. Looking at
classics like Giant, Silkwood, There Will Be Blood, and Matewan,
and at quirkier fare like A Is for Atom and Convoy, it argues that
films have both reflected existing beliefs and conjured new visions
for Americans about the role of energy in their lives and their
history. The essays in this collection show how film provides a
unique and informative lens to understand perceptions of energy
production, consumption, and infrastructure networks. By placing
films that prominently feature energy within historical context and
analyzing them as historical objects, the contributing authors
demonstrate how energy systems of all kinds are both integral to
the daily life of Americans and inextricable from larger societal
changes and global politics.
The beauty of the Hudson River Valley was a legendary subject for
artists during the nineteenth century. They portrayed its bucolic
settings and humans in harmony with nature as the physical
manifestation of God's work on earth. More than a hundred years
later, those sentiments would be tested as never before.
In the fall of 1962, Consolidated Edison of New York, the nation's
largest utility company, announced plans for the construction of a
pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant at Storm King Mountain on
the Hudson River, forty miles north of New York City. Over the next
eighteen years, their struggle against environmentalists would
culminate in the abandonment of the project.
Robert D. Lifset offers an original case history of this
monumental event in environmental history, when a small group of
concerned local residents initiated a landmark case of ecology
versus energy production. He follows the progress of this struggle,
as Con Ed won approvals and permits early on, but later lost ground
to environmentalists who were able to raise questions about the
potential damage to the habitat of Hudson River striped bass.
Lifset uses the struggle over Storm King to examine how
environmentalism changed during the 1960s and 1970s. He also views
the financial challenges and increasingly frequent blackouts faced
by Con Ed, along with the pressure to produce ever-larger
quantities of energy.
As Lifset demonstrates, the environmental cause was greatly
empowered by the fact that through this struggle, for the first
time, environmentalists were able to gain access to the federal
courts. The environmental cause was also greatly advanced by
adopting scientific evidence of ecological change, combined with
mounting public awareness of the environmental consequences of
energy production and consumption. These became major factors
supporting the case against Con Ed, spawning a range of new local,
regional, and national environmental organizations and bequeathing
to the Hudson River Valley a vigilant and intense environmental
awareness. A new balance of power emerged, and energy companies
would now be held to higher standards that protected the
environment.
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