This compelling saga recounts the human effort to capture the power of the wind for electricity--from the first European windmills, to nineteenth century experiments in rural electrification, to the immense wind farms in California and the plains states that feed power grid today.Environmental historian Robert W. Righter describes eccentric inventors and techinical innovations, analyzes the politics of the power industry, past and present, and demonstrates that individuals and small businesses have made the greatest contributions to wind-energy development. Wind Energy in America also focuses on contemporary developments, including U.S. government research and regulation and the international race for dominance in the wind-turbine business. Righter explores the arguments of people and organizations opposed to the spread of wind generators--often the same environmental groups, paradoxically, that hailed wind energy as a savior in the late 1970s.

This abundantly illustrated history, free of ideology and cant, will be of lasting interest to environmentalists, scholars, and all readers alert to the need for alternatives to coal and oil.