Oil, power, and war : a dark history /

Oil, power, and war : a dark history /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Auzanneau, Matthieu, author.
Uniform title:	Or noir. English
Imprint:	White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, [2018]
Description:	xiv, 650 pages ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Petroleum industry and trade -- History. Petroleum industry and trade -- Political aspects. Petroleum industry and trade. Petroleum industry and trade -- Political aspects. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11751006

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:	Reynolds, John F., translator. Heinberg, Richard, author of foreword.
ISBN:	9781603587433 1603587438 9781603587440
Notes:	Translation of: Or noir : la grande histoire du pétrole. Includes bibliographical references and index. Translated from the French.
Summary:	"Oil, Power, and War is a sweeping, unabashed history of oil, told by French journalist Matthieu Auzanneau. It provides a detailed account of the people and events that drove the oil industry from its earliest days, and takes a critical look at the way oil interests have commandeered politics and economies, changed cultures, disrupted power balances across the globe, and spawned wars. The author exposes the greed and reckless behavior--by a long line of characters from John D. Rockefeller to Dick Cheney--that moved oil along its destructive, unsustainable path, from its heyday when the first oil wells were drilled to the quest for new sources as old ones dried up. The author traces the rise of the Seven Sisters and other oil cartels, and follows the thread of oil through the crises that have shaped our times: two world wars, the Cold War, the Great Depression and the 2008 financial crash, oil shocks, wars in the Middle East, the race for Africa's oil riches, and more. We learn lesser-known stories, too, like how New York City taxes were once funneled directly to banks run by oil barons, after the city was about to default on its debt. And we gain new perspective on the central role of oil in military conflicts over the past 100 years. Now that there is much less oil available, Auzanneau looks to the future and warns that even greater conflict may arise"--

Description
Summary:	Catholic Herald Book Awards 2019 Finalist, Current Affairs "Auzanneau has created a towering telling of a dark and dangerous addiction."--Nature The story of oil is one of hubris, fortune, betrayal, and destruction. It is the story of a resource that has been undeniably central to the creation of our modern culture, and ever-present during the darkest exploits of empire the world over. For the past 150 years, oil has become the most essential ingredient for economic, military, and political power. And it has brought us to our present moment in which political leaders and the fossil-fuel industry consider extraordinary, and extraordinarily dangerous, policy on a world stage marked by shifting power bases. Upending the conventional wisdom by crafting a "people's history," award-winning journalist Matthieu Auzanneau deftly traces how oil became a national and then global addiction, outlines the enormous consequences of that addiction, sheds new light on major historical and contemporary figures, and raises new questions about stories we thought we knew well: What really sparked the oil crises in the 1970s, the shift away from the gold standard at Bretton Woods, or even the financial crash of 2008? How has oil shaped the events that have defined our times: two world wars, the Cold War, the Great Depression, ongoing wars in the Middle East, the advent of neoliberalism, and the Great Recession, among them? With brutal clarity, Oil, Power, and War exposes the heavy hand oil has had in all of our lives--and illustrates how much heavier that hand could get during the increasingly desperate race to control the last of the world's easily and cheaply extractable reserves.
Item Description:	Translation of: Or noir : la grande histoire du pétrole.
Physical Description:	xiv, 650 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9781603587433 1603587438 9781603587440