Oil: A Concise Guide to the Most Important Product on Earth

The blurb review looks a bit foolish to me, from the vantage point of 2009. I have to say, though, I know the guy who did the cover. I thought this was a wonderful book then and it's only grown in stature. Really, read this book! Then go look for the archive of the whole so-called "malaise" speech by Jimmy Carter in 1979, and realize the last 30 years have been wasted and worse than wasted directly because of people like Reagan and W and the many people in the industry spreading lies and astroturf. If people had listened to Carter, ironically, the criticism of the review might be apt - we might still be wondering about the didactic tone of the last part of the book. Now, I really question the education and/or sanity of anyone who would question it given the real state of affairs. Unless you're in the industry, in which case you live in a culture of deception.

The preface to "Oil" describes the author's thought experiment of what it would be like to go a day without petroleum products. Naturally there would no fuel or lubricants, for cars or any other type of machinery -- but there would also be no plastics (oops, there goes the computer and telephone). There would be no reading glasses or contact lenses. Most of the medicines in his cabinet would be gone. No shampoo, shaving cream or deodorant, and no curtain around his shower. No toothpaste ... or toothbrush. No non-stick cookware, oven-proof glassware or plastic dishes. No waterproof clothing or shoes (unless they have leather soles). There would be no heat in the winter. No harvesting of crops without machinery, fertilizers or pesticides. Credit and debit cards, being plastic of course, are gone. CDs and DVDs disappear, as well anything to play them on, because there are no electronic circuit boards. Very quickly you realize why Yeomans calls oil "the most important product on earth" -- it has not only fueled the Industrial Revolution, it *IS* the Industrial Revolution. Without oil, the world very quickly plunges into a wood, iron and stone economy not seen since the Middle Ages. In Chapter 1 Yeomans gives "a short history of oil," from its discovery as a fuel to the mechanization of its extraction and refinement. How World War I was made more lethal (over 16 million dead!) through tanks and troop carriers. How the Allied powers divided up the oil-producing regions after the war in order to protect their own newfound dependence on the stuff. One of Yeomans' great talents is revealing the hidden oil-related motives in history. Pearl Harbor was Japan's bid to control Indochinese oil fields. Hitler's expansion was to ensure energy resources. Who has oil, and who controls its production, has truly shaped the 20th Century. Chapter 2 describes the automobile culture that arose out of cheap gas, with interstate highways, a mobile workforce, and sprawling suburbs. Detroit and the oil giants encouraged excess, and American consumers love their inefficient chrome land yachts. Chapter 3 describes the machinations that have caused (and are still causing) regime change and political turmoil as oil companies set foreign policy and install businessmen to run the lucrative franchises known as "other nations." The 4th chapter introduces the concept of "peak oil" and discusses the economics of the end of high-grade light crude in easily-drilled areas. Chapter 5, entitled "Energy Wars," describes the inevitable results of the major developed and developing nations competing for the rapidly dwindling reserves. The last three chapters are less timeless, written in 2003-4 and describing the now-familiar Bush Administration policies and mistakes. But they're still extremely clear-headed, factual, concise and irrefutable, and together with the rest of the book paint a very solemn portrait of the legacy we're leaving our children. A legacy of

Over the course of my life I've had limited exposure to knowledge about oil - I see gas prices daily, I occasionally pay attention to news stories that feature oil prominently, and I read the protest banners that exclaim "no blood for oil" (which I always found to be a rather silly slogan). End all be all, I didn't know Jack about oil until I read this book. The book starts with a history of oil discovery (Chapter 1). Usually such histories are incredibly boring in my opinion, but Yeomans does a great job keeping the reader interested (partially by moving pretty quickly, rather than dwelling on arcane and ultimately irrelevant historical analysis). Chapters 2-7 deal with different policy topics that are predominantly oil oriented: cars in America, human rights and environmental issues in oil exploration, oil prices and scarcity, oil wars, President Bush's association with the oil industry, and CAFE (a piece of emissions standards legislation). The book then ends (Chapter 8) with a brief discussion of hydrogen as an emerging alternative and an afterward on the rising importance of China. From what I know of oil discussions in general, these chapters introduce most of the important elements of the general discussion of oil; reading this book made me feel prepared to discuss oil issues to a moderate degree of depth. For readers who are already familiar with these discussions about oil, I don't know that reading this book will tell you much more than you already know. Yeomans clearly has a liberal bias on the issue, but he is not quite a doomsayer. For those who do not know much about the politics and cultural aspects of oil, I highly reccomend this book as a short read that will get you up to speed so whenever the topic comes up in conversation or news you can have an informed opinion.

As someone who studies Middle Eastern politics, the oil industry is a very natural offshoot of the general subject. While I won't make it a point to read every book on oil out there, I feel it's important to have at the very least, a basic understanding of oil. In many ways, Yeomans fits these needs. The book is written from a sociological perspective as well as a political perspective, so the end product is a brief, but still encompassing look at oil. Yeomans does a fine job explaining the basics of how the oil industry came to be where it is today as well as how it currently functions. I'm sure there are other books that go into more detail, but I felt this was a good place to start. Something I did find odd however is that while Yeomans goes to great and convincing lenghts to demonstrate how vital oil is the world economy, he includes very obvious opposition to the current Iraq war. I'm not saying that he is inherently right or wrong, it's just that it seemed unatural to include this type of political content in what was to be a description of how and why the oil industry functions. Ultimately, the book wouldn't suffer from leaving out this tangent. Yeomans also offers his take on life beyond oil, offering what I felt to be helpful recommendations, but the final chapter just seems to end out of nowhere. I wish this last chapter were a bit longer. Ultimately, I enjoyed the book, but will certainly read a few more books on the subject to get a better feel for it.

Matthew Yeomans, whose career I've followed since I worked with him at the Village Voice, has come out with an superlative, concise, and authoritative history of the oil industry. If oil is the most significant industry of the past 100 years, this book is surely the most important and decisive account of that industry since Daniel Yergin's The Prize. From the origins of the petroleum industry in 1900 to the petroeconomics of 2000 (and 2004), Yeomans explicates all - in a lively, engaging, and illuminating style. When a book captivates me because of 1) its confidence with facts and history and 2) its commanding langauge and voice - well, that's what I look for in a history. Yeomans has written what I think will prove to be the definitive account of what could be a fading industry. Whatever your politics, this is a book to buy just because the research is so good and the subject matter so important. If you want a cheat sheet to the next 20 years in Iraq, this is it.