The United States is one of the largest energy consumers and biggest contributors of greenhouse gases worldwide. In 2011, the U.S. generated 42 percent of its electricity from coal and only 13 percent through renewables, chiefly hydropower.

Authors present original research on metropolitan governance in Brazil Canada, Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela.

The founding fathers expected Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most power. When Congress is broken—as its justifiably dismal approval ratings suggest—so is our democracy. Here, Robert G. Kaiser, whose long and distinguished career at The Washington Post has made him as keen and knowledgeable an observer of Congress as we have, takes us behind the sound bites to expose the protocols, players, and politics of the House and Senate—revealing both the triumphs of the system and (more often) its fundamental flaws.

Kate Brown presented "Plutopia", the first history of Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia, two communities developed in parallel by opposing nations at the height of the Cold War.