ISBN 0-393-05857-3. Published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2004. Subtitled "The End of the Age of Oil" and boasting an imaginative front cover artwork. David Goodstein is a professor of Physics at Caltech. If he tells you there is a problem you should probably sit up and take notice. Will fossil fuels really be replaced as soon as the price rises high enough? What would happen to our climate if we burnt all the oil that is left? Can western civilisation survive without oil? He uses science in an attempt to study the geology and politics behind what is going on in the world. He explains how the coming oil crisis is 
inevitable. Like any natural resource it is finite. After a while discovery of new reserves will eventually tail-off. A few years later the rate of production will also start to tail-off. Through the book the author looks at the future, energy history, energy myths, heat engines, entropy, technological fixes and so on. It all reads like a secondary school text book. A light and easy read although obviously the work of a scientist. Recommended. This book was dedicated to "our children and grandchildren who will not inherit the riches that we inherited".
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