The original and still the best.

The best all-around book yet on fracking.
— San Francisco Chronicle
Gold’s work is a tour de force of contemporary journalism.
— Booklist

A definitive narrative history, The Boom follows the twists and turns in the development and adoption of this radical technology. It is a thrilling journey filled with colorful characters: the green-minded Texas oilman who created the first modern frack; a bare-knuckled Oklahoman natural gas empire-builder who gave the world an enormous new supply of energy and was brought down by his own success and excesses; an environmental leader whose embrace of fracking brought an end to his public career; and an aging fracking pioneer who is now trying to save the industry from itself. 

Interested in assigning The Boom in your classroom? Click here for a Readers Guide and suggestions for questions and additional sources for classroom use.