Few of us notice the fuel behind our everyday lives, raised from the sea and piped directly into our homes. But when we turn up the thermostat or the air con, we are tugging on just one thread in a vast global network. Hot House reveals the hidden story of how our lives have been transformed by this search for domestic comfort.





Sam Johnson-Schlee uncovers an expansive story ranging from North Sea oil platforms named after drowned villages, to surprisingly sexy radiators adverts, to a cross-border thriller of pipeline sabotage. As the atmosphere in our homes changed over the last century, it opened up new forms of social life, new modes of leisure and pleasure, new art and culture. Through this history, we can discover the story of how society came to function as it does - and in turn we can start to dream of a different future.



Sam Johnson-Schlee is a writer and academic. He is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography and Town Planning at London South Bank University and was awarded a British Academy Innovation Fellowship for his work on the cultural geography of gas and central heating. He is a BBC New Generation Thinker for the research on this book. His book-length essay, Living Rooms, was selected as a Book of the Year by The New Statesman, White Review and LRB.