Contents

• The terrible twins : cars and oil wrote the history of twentieth-century American capitalism
• Down and out in Detroit : how the car industry, the icon of American greatness in the last century, lost its way
• Big oil in big trouble : the world is not running out of oil, but America’s oil giants are in trouble even so
• The parable of the Prius : how Toyota’s culture propelled the once- provincial carmaker past GM to number one
• The axis of oil : oil’s geopolitical complications arise from America’s bipartisan addiction to oil
• The slumbering giant awakes : the great awakening of America to the dangers of oil addiction and global warming is pushing corporations to act
• but can big business really solve the problem?
• Crouching tiger, leaping dragon : Asia’s rise could save, rather than destroy, the planet
• The juice and the jalopy : the same anarchic, amazing forces that brought us the Internet and telecom revolutions are now racing to develop the clean fuels and smart cars of tomorrow
• A call to arms : a grass-roots movement sweeping across America promises to overturn Washington’s oil curse
• and level the playing field for clean energy and the car of the future