CAPE WIND Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future WENDY WILLIAMS AND ROBERT WHITCOMB

"Colorful storytelling about the tribulations of siting a renewable energy project off of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Cape, a ‘devil's triangle of entrenched, often inherited, wealth'… Yes, this book is lots of fun."
—Alex Beam, Boston Globe

"Beach reading with a twist."
—New York Observer, "Critic's Tip Sheet"

"For citizens wondering what has become of America's once-upon-a-time democratic republic, I know of no better place to begin the search than with a close reading of a Cape Wind by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb. The book joins first-rate investigative reporting with trenchant social commentary; the result is as entertaining as it is instructive. Voters intending to take part in next year's election shouldn't leave home without it."
--Lewis Lapham

"Displaying their impressive combined investigative skills, Williams and Whticomb unearth some real gems of quotes related to the wind-farm debate. Indeed, it is the authors' ability to cite so many names, dates, and events that give the book such solid ground… Cape Wind is an example of investigative journalism at its best."
—Popmatters.com

"[A] well-reported assessment of democracy manipulated by powerful federal, state and local insiders, and other not-in-my-backyard shenanigans surrounding plans for a wind farm five miles off Cape Cod... [A] rambunctious, unsparing dissection of ruling-class abuse."
--Publishers Weekly

"If HBO is looking to develop a series based on environmental politics, then Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound is a natural for the option, with the Kennedys sitting in for the Sopranos, Nantucket Sound for the Meadowlands and phrases like ‘environmental impact statement' replacing ‘swimming with the fishes'… A great summer beach read about longtime summer beach communities… Cape Wind is less an argument for wind power than an indictment of our money-soaked political process."
—The New York Times Book Review

"a ripe subject, populated with the sorts of people who would be among the first to count themselves as friends of the Earth but the last to accept an environmentally friendly energy source if it meant the slightest cloud on their ocean views."
—The Wall Street Journal

"This is a story that seems to have everything: waterfront mansions, yachts, a tenacious blue-collar entrepreneur, bare-knuckled political infighting at the state level and high-stakes political poker in Congress. It offers the delicious spectacle of self-described environmentalists, infatuated with the idea of alternative energy, tying themselves into knots trying to explain why a wind farm would be a splendid idea anywhere but in Nantucket Sound. Throw in a few Kennedys and you have the ingredients for a first-rate politico-eco drama."
—The New York Times

"As a satire of class conflict and the political system in general, Cape Wind is excellent."
—Bostonist.com

"Memorial Day weekend is upon us and all the Muffys and Buffys sipping cocktails on their Cape and Islands verandas are crying in their G&T's. Cape Wind… has hit the shelves."
—Boston Herald

"Where ‘Cape Wind' really excels is at describing the tactics of pro- and anti-Cape Wind activists and at giving the reader a strong sense of the hostile nature of the debate…And so what we have in ‘Cape Wind' is a lively, engrossing history of a current hot topic, presented with all the gusto of a Red Sox-Yankees debate in a sports bar. Nonetheless, through all the bluster and bravado… the reader gets a three-dimensional look at the combatants and the issues."
—New Bedford Standard-Times

"Williams and Whitcomb are good writers and reporters, and even those who have followed this saga closely will find a wealth of new material to consider."
—Barnstable Patriot

"Authors Williams and Whitcomb… dispense with objectivity in their treatment of the Cape Wind project. Who can blame them? They're having too much fun. The Cape and Islands, as we Bostonians call them, have indeed become a ‘devil's triangle of entrenched, often inherited wealth,' providing targets aplenty for our intrepid writers…Cape Wind is breezy and informative fun."
—Weekly Standard

"I had forgotten that there's a vast audience outside Southeastern New England who will find this a fascinating story in which a developer, of all things, is David, while Goliath is an alliance of fabulously wealthy summer people, media darlings such as Walter Cronkite and David McCullough, politicians, such as Mitt Romney and, above all, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who's on the right side of every environmental issue except the one that involves where he sails."
—Providence Journal

"In all, though, Cape Wind is a fun read, and a fun way to learn about renewable energy. If all the stories on this usually dry topic featured tales of meat hook accidents and characters with comic names, more Americans might pay attention. Cape Wind's opening scene, of author David McCullough screaming at a Martha's Vineyard town meeting that Nantucket Sound is ‘hallowed ground,' is worth the price of admission. You want McCullough and Kennedy to get their comeuppance."
—The American

"Whatever your stance on the wind farm project proposed for Nantucket Sound, when you read Cape Wind by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, the authors' assertion that a small group of rich, part-time residents of Cape Cod who want to kill the project used their money and power to hijack our democratic process may enrage you."
—Cape Cod Chronicle

"It's a surprise when a book on environmental politics reads like a good whodunit or an exposé… Cape Wind, in the hands of skillful authors Williams and Whitcomb, has a powerful ‘Wizard-of-Oz' plot with project opponents, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, maneuvering behind the curtains, pulling strings, and unexpectedly catalyzing those who knew the democratic process should not be for sale."
—Working Waterfront