This volume sheds light on the technical and institutional handicaps that the gas industry had to face since the early 19th century to consolidate its position in the energy market. It traces the history of gas energy use in a European context to understand the reasons for its crucial nature in the region. Going back to the start of gas production in England and France at the turn of the 18th century, the book has a specific focus on Latin Europe: Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. Topics discussed include, but are not limited to the evolution of gas technology and associations; capital, technical, and human transfer among countries; strategies carried out by gas companies to promote their activity; how gas companies adapted to changing markets, faced with the competition of electricity at the end of the 19th century, until late 20th century; and how war, especially the Second World War, affected gas supply in Latin Europe. Finally, the volume discusses the emerginguse of natural gas by France and Italy after 1945, which meant a quantitative advantage compared to their neighbors in Latin Europe, Portugal and Spain, as well as a political advantage, in terms of energetic independence. The book will appeal to scholars, students, and researchers of economic history, business history, as well as technological history, interested in a better understanding of the evolution of gas into a major energy source, a role that it has kept until today.

Autorentext

Ana Cardoso de Matos is a Professor at the Évora University-ECS-Department of History (Portugal) and a member of the Research Centre CIDEHUS/UE (Portugal). Since 2007 she is responsible for the Erasmus Mundus Master TPTI - Techniques, patrimoines, territoires de l'industrie at the University of Évora, a joint program of the Universities of Paris I -Panthéon Sorbonne (France), Évora and Padua (Italy), as well as other universities. From 2015 until 2022 she was Vice Director of the Institute of Research and Advanced Training (IIFA). Alexandre Fernandez is a Professor of Modern History at the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne (France) and member of Research Centre CEMMC (Centre d'études sur les mondes moderne et contemporain). He is President of the 22è section (Modern History and Modern History of Arts) of the Conseil National des Universités since 2015. His research focuses on the history of energy, as well as the history of urban networks and utilities. Antonio Jesús Pinto Tortosa is a full-time lecturer for Contemporary History at the University of Malaga, Malaga (Spain). He holds a PhD in contemporary Spanish history and has published several works on the history of the gas industry and the Spanish industrial take-off.