The Gas Sector in Latin Europe¿s Industrial History

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.

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.

Offers an in-depth analysis of the evolution of the gas sector and technology in Latin Europe

Chapter 1. Why Gas?.- Chapter 2. Why Latin Europe?.- Part 1: Dawn and Consolidation of Latin Europe's Industrialisation: the Evolution of Gas in the 19th Century.- Chapter 3. The Internationalization of the English Gas Industry in Latin Europe in the 19th Century.- Chapter 4. First Steps of Industrial Associationism in Latin Europe's Gas Sector: the Société Française De L'industrie Du Gaz.- Chapter 5. Gas Lighting for the Crown: análisis of the Use of Gas Lighting Within the Festivities to Commemorate the Bonaparte and the Bourbon Dynasties in Paris (France) and Madrid (Spain).- Chapter 6. Entrepreneurial Initiatives, Foreign Investment, and Marketing Implementation of Gas Services in Portuguese Cities of Lisbon and Porto During the Second Half of the 19th Century.- Chapter 7. The Role of the Technical Press in the Diffusion of Gas in Europe: the Case of Le Gaz Journal, 1857-1880.- Part 2: the Turning Point: Competition Between Gas and Electricity at the Turn of the 19th Century.- Chapter 8. Gas Versus Electricity in Paris and Rome From the 1880s to the 1910s.- Chapter 9. The Gas Industry of the North of Spain, C. 1845-1945.- Chapter 10. Gas as a Goal. The Evolution of Gas Technology in Spain Until 1936.- Chapter 11. The Impact of World War Ii on Gas Production in Latin Europe.- Chapter 12. The Use of Computers in the Spanish Gas Industry. The First Comer: Catalana De Gas Y Electricidad (1962-1969).