Daniel Yergin, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, & Power"

Product Description
Written by the author of "Shattered Peace" and "Energy Future", this book brings to life the tycoons, wildcatters, monopolists, regulators, presidents, generals and sheiks whose struggle for oil has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, transformed the destiny of Britain and the world and profoundly changed all our lives. Beginning with the first oil well of the 1850s and continuing up to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, it is a story of greed, gumption nad ingenuity, all in pursuit of "the prize"—worldwide economic, military and political mastery through the control of oil.

The book includes the story of Shell Oil, a company forged in defiance of the Standard Oil monopoly by an upstart London trader, using Rothchild connections, Russian oil and Dutch petrolium concession in the East Indies. The central strategic role of oil in both world wars—from the decisive 4-knot-per-hour advantage of oil-burning ships in World War I to Rommel's stalled tank advance at El Alamein in War II (he literally ran out of petrol) The underground battle to win the greatest prize of all—the Saudi oil concession. The inside story of the discovery of North Sea Oil and its crucial role in undermining the OPEC monopoly.

Amazon.com Review
Daniel Yergin's first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there, The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world—oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin's fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War.

From Library Journal
This book does not require recent events in the Persian Gulf to make it an essential addition for most public libraries as well as all college libraries. Written by one of the foremost U.S. authorities on energy, it is a major work in the field, replete with enough insight to satisfy the scholar and sufficient concern with the drama and colorful personalities in the history of oil to capture the interest of the general public. Though lengthy, the book never drags in developing its themes: the relationship of oil to the rise of modern capitalism; the intertwining relations between oil, politics, and international power; and the relationship between oil and society in what Yergin calls today's age of "Hydrocarbon Man." Parts of the story have been told as authoritatively before, e.g., in Irvine Anderson's Aramco: The United States and Saudi Arabia ( LJ 7/81), but never in as comprehensive a fashion as here.

Contents

List of Maps
List Of Illustrations
Prologue

Part I: The Founders
 1 Oil on the Brain: The Beginning
 2 "Our Plan": John D. Rockefeller and the Combination of American Oil
 3 Competitive Commerce
 4 The New Century
 5 The Dragon Slain
 6 The Oil Wars: The Rise of Royal Dutch, the Fall of Imperial Russia
 7 "Beer and Skittles" in Persia
 8 The Fateful Plunge

Part II: The Global Struggle
 9 The Blood of Victory: World War I
 10 Opening the Door on the Middle East: The Turkish Petroleum Company
 11 From Shortage to Surplus: The Age of Gasoline
 12 "The Fight for New Production"
 13 The Flood
 14 "Friends"—and Enemies
 15 The Arabian Concessions: The World That Frank Holmes Made

Part III: War and Strategy
 16 Japan's Road to War
 17 Germany's Formula for War
 18 Japan's Achilles' Heel
 19 The Allies' War

Part IV: The Hydrocarbon Age
 20 The New Center of Gravity
 21 The Postwar Petroleum Order
 22 Fifty-Fifty: The New Deal in Oil
 23 "Old Mossy" and the Struggle for Iran
 24 The Suez Crisis
 25 The Elephants
 26 OPEC and the Surge Pot
 27 Hydrocarbon Man

Part V: The Battle For World Mastery
 28 The Hinge Years: Countries Versus Companies
 29 The Oil Weapon
 30 "Bidding for Our Life"
 31 OPEC's Imperium
 32 The Adjustment
 33 The Second Shock: The Great Panic
 34 "We're Going Down"
 35 Just Another Commodity?
 36 The Good Sweating: How Low Can It Go?

Epilogue
Chronology
Oil Prices and Production
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Photo Credits
Index
About the Author

Tags: Energy, Oil, PetroleumIndustry, History, WorldPolitics