Panic at the Pump: The Energy Crisis and the Transformation of American Politics in the 1970s

"Like the Cowie book, Meg Jacobs’s book about the energy crisis of the 1970s does a great job of situating the politics of the era in the longer-run transformations taking place during the decade, particularly our relationship with the Middle East and with imported oil. That’s behind a lot of the inflation in the decade. One of the things that Carter doesn’t get enough credit for is thinking and speaking clearly about the energy crisis, energy challenges, and America’s dependence on the Middle East, which was an increasingly unstable region, for imported oil. He was forthright about the need to conserve energy both for economic reasons and security reasons. In a way, Carter was visionary about these things. As I said, even before Carter took office, this was a brewing issue. When Carter arrived at the White House, the first energy crisis was just barely in the rearview mirror. He had trouble getting traction in Congress and with the public about these issues. When the second oil shock hit, in 1979, oil prices went up again, sparking big inflation, and it was increasingly harder for him to win that message. But public discussion about the relationship between energy consumption and what we now call climate issues were central to his presidency from its beginning."