Oil, power, and war : a dark history / Matthieu Auzanneau ; translated by John F. Reynolds ; foreword by Richard Heinberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Auzanneau, Matthieu, author.

Heinberg, Richard, author of foreword.

Contributor:

Reynolds, John F., translator.

Standardized Title:

Or noir. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Petroleum industry and trade--History.

Petroleum industry and trade.

History.

Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspects.

Genre:

History.

Nonfiction.

Physical Description:

xiv, 650 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

White River Junction, Vermont : Chelsea Green Publishing, [2018]

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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

A seed is planted

John D. Rockefeller, the power of petroleum, and the spiral of expansion

Sharing the world market : the first attempts, at the cradle of Royal Dutch Shell

The automobile : American oil regenerates capitalism

The tank : American oil feeds the victorious fighting machines of the Great War

The roaring 1920s : consolidating the new empires

Birth of a petrol-nation : Iraq

The majors band together : a secretly planned industry weathers the Great Depression unscathed

The persistent alliance of big oil with Nazi Germany

The enablers of the Second World War

After Yalta : the United States and Saudi Arabia seal their alliance

Washington gives absolute power to American petroleum

Big oil's planetary empire and the Rockefellers' hegemonic ambitions

Big oil asserts itself : a matrix of political power in Washington

Saudi Arabia and Gabon : nations spoiled by oil

Cartel against cartel : OPEC's painful emergence

The leapfrog effect : Algeria, Biafra, and Libya

The golden childhood of the oil-made man

OPEC : scapegoat for a 1973 oil crisis made in the USA?

Oil money : after neocolonialism, a perilous symbiosis

The second oil crisis : a deadly vortex of power is unleashed around the Persian Gulf

The long Iran-Iraq War : a lose-lose game?

The oil countershock : the frenzy of the Reagan years, the collapse of the USSR, and the BCCI scandal

Dear Saddam : the Gulf War, the fate of the Iraqi people, and the long-term interests of Uncle Sam

Planetary harvest : the time of scandals

Grandeur and decadence : the explosion of opulence, misery, and the human footprint

Oil's future decline is announced : the Persian Gulf returns to the center of the chessboard

September 11, 2001 : a rogue Pearl Harbor

Shocks and ruptures : the occupation of Iraq and crisis of 2008

Winter, tomorrow?

Notes:

Translation of: Or noir : la grande histoire du pétrole.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781603587433

1603587438

OCLC:

1031340953