Power Trip

After covering the environment and energy beat for more than a decade, Amanda Little decided the only way to really understand America's energy crisis was to travel into the heart of it. In a vivid cross-country power trip-from an off-shore oil rig, the Talladega Superspeedway, and New York City's electrical grid to the Pentagon's fuel-logistics division and laboratories creating the innovations of America's clean-energy future-Little illustrates just how oil permeates our daily lives: growing our crops, fighting our wars, making our plastics and medicines, warming our homes, and animating our cities.

Amanda Little has written about energy, technology, and the environment for numerous publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, Wired, and the Washington Post. She lives with her husband and daughter in Nashville, Tennessee.