Oil, Power, and War
"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"
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5recommend
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6people
2019–2025years
71% recommend29% neutral
Mentions per year
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- Not in a post, but here's a few books for you: Seignorage on a global reserve currency: read "the global minotaur", the story of oil: read "Oil, Power, and War" by Matthieu Auzanneau, and for completeness: "The brothers" by Stephen Kinzer.
- You could start with the guy who was there, and coined the term, Arnold Toynbee (not to be confused with his similarly-named nephew, who writes the preface to this edition), The Industrial Revolution, developed from a series of lecture notes 1880-81:
<https://archive.org/details/industrialrevol00toyngoog/page/n...>
See note on Worldcat links / surveillance below.
I'm strongly partial to looking at history through the lens / frame of energy. Several books and authors do this:
- Matthieu Auzanneau, Oil, Power, and War: a dark history. Chelsea Green Publishing Co., (2020). https://www.worldcat.org/title/oil-power-and-war-a-dark-hist...
- Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History. Routledge (1994) https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/...
- Vaclav Smil, Energy and civilization : a history. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, (2018) https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-and-civilization-a-his...
- Manfred Weissenbacher, Sources of power : how energy forges human history (2 vols). Praeger, (2009). https://www.worldcat.org/title/sources-of-power-how-energy-f...
- Richard Rhodes, Energy : a human history. Simon & Schuster (2019) https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-a-human-history/oclc/1...
- Economic history of energy and environment. Springer (2016). https://www.worldcat.org/title/economic-history-of-energy-an...
- Anthony N Penna, A history of energy flows : from human labor to renewable power. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, (2020). https://www.worldcat.org/title/history-of-energy-flows-from-...
- Cutler J Cleveland, Concise encyclopedia of history of energy. Elsevier, (2009) https://www.worldcat.org/title/concise-encyclopedia-of-histo...
- Joseph A Pratt, Energy Capitals : Local Impact, Global Influence. University of Pittsburgh Press, (2014). https://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-capitals-local-impact-...
There's a series edited by Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University and published by the Princeton University Press, "The Princeton Economic History of the Western World" with a number of highly recommended titles:
<https://press.princeton.edu/series/the-princeton-economic-hi...>
In particular:
- Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms, looking specifically at why the Industrial Revolution arose in Britain in the 19th century.
- Robert J. Gordon The Rise and Fall of American Growth, on the 150 years from 1870--2020, and the trajectory of growth in the US over that period.
(There are far more books in the series, and I've read only a small fraction. Numerous other titles look highly promising.)
There's Joel Mokyr's own The Gifts of Athena: <https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691120133/th...>
R.U. Ayres (Robert) has written a number of articles and essays looking at technological development which are IMO highly underrated.
The question of why the IR arose in the UK has been called "the Needham Question" (especially in contrast with why it did not arise in China, which has a long and deep history of technological innovation). I'm not aware of any single treatment of this, and Needham's own Science and Civilisation in China despite its excellence in cataloguing China's accomplishments really doesn't serve as a concise answer either.
Warning that Worldcat seems to exfiltrate both search terms and searcher's IPs to Facebook and Google. See: <https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1570183006689673222.html>.
Unfortunately I'm not aware of a suitable replacement service presently, though Internet Archive's Open Library is getting there.
- The more one dives into the relationship between society and energy, the more it appears energy sources and availability mold society, like transport, food, architecture, politics, urbanization, philosophy or medicine. The book "Oil, Power, and War: A Dark History" by Matthieu Auzanneau (Or in French: "Or Noir") shows that quite well.
- I feel Oil, Power and War by Matthieu Auzanneau would deserve more publicity. (Edit: italicized)
- Not to forget that WWII was a war won by oil. Whoever was able to mobilize the most energy (in the form of oil) could win (a great book about that: Oil, Power and War[0]). Retooling in the face of declining energy availability will be a different matter.
[0]: https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/oil-power-and-war/
- In fairness, he did so in part because this was going to go against Total's interests (see Oil, Power and War for that part of the story), but yeah, it was still the right stance to have and history proved him right.
