In the modern world, countries need a reliable electricity grid to prosper. Globally, demand for electricity is growing as a result of population growth, new ways to use electricity, and the effort to spread access to electrical power to a greater portion of the world’s population.

For the past four years, Robert Bryce has been intensively studying the electricity business, which he describes as the world’s second largest industry by revenue, trailing only the fossil fuel industry. He calculates that global annual electricity sales total approximately $2 trillion. He traveled to a number of different locations to learn how countries, states, cities and even individual businesses are creating, transmitting and using electricity.

His resulting book, A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, was released on March 10, 2020. By the time it had been released, the world was in the throes of responding to the coronavirus and his well-planned book tour had been essentially cancelled.