Though The End of Oil is not a chronological history of humanity's use of fossil fuels, Roberts begins by recounting how Thomas Newcomen, in 1712, presented the first large steam engine, and thus helped spark the Industrial Revolution.

[3] Finally, since the burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide that was previously locked in the ground, humanity's reliance on oil may contribute to global warming.

Energy is a vast topic, with millions of components interwoven in a complex and everchanging pattern that defies quick answers or simple truths.

For example, citing Arab Oil and Gas magazine as a source, Roberts wrote that "in the next five to ten years", if there were to be any large disruption in supply, "prices could easily be bid up past sixty dollars a barrel and kept there for months".

"[10] Fellow author Joseph J. Romm, whose The Hype about Hydrogen had been published a few weeks before The End of Oil, called the book "fascinating" and "a stinging rebuke of America's myopic, do-nothing energy policy.