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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.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize Winner -- and Now an Epic PBS Series
The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.
The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
Customer Reviews:
First to cover the topic, but still a facile book.......2007-09-17
Yergen gets kudos for being the first to cover this topic, but his account (perhaps because it's now outdated) is facile and pro-oil company. Every time the oil companies are thwarted he seems to blame straw men for it: tree huggers, the people that hounded poor misunderstood Tricky Dick Nixon, the Saudi sheiks (best friends of Bush, Cheney, et al). He never turns his gaze on the corruption of the oil companies themselves. We hit peak oil in the U.S. in the 1960s. The oil companies suppressed any attempts since then to find alternative fuels. Now we are up the creek, so to speak, with the Oil Men running the Show. Some "Prize". I'd say it's the booby prize. The best overview of our current fix is Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower.
The Age of Oil.......2007-07-04
We are living in the Age of oil.
World and human civilization have experienced different "ages" such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Gilded Age, and so on. The 20th and 21st Centuries are indeed, the "Oil Age." We are living in it. This book is one of the most informative and relevant books published in recent years, In my opinion. This work by Daniel Yergin was and still is prescient today, in 2007. "The Prize" tells the story of where we are today, and how we got here. It also latently foresees where we're going in the future. The book doesn't tell us - we just know. We're human. This book is so comprehensive and has so much information only a small portion of it can be noted. Below relates to WWII, and former Iranian leader Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.
"The Prize" proceeds chronologically. And within the chapters there are numerous mini-subtitles for sub-chapters that connect the big picture. The bibliography and index are excellent and can be used to tie in different figures and historical occurrences. The 'history of oil' is actually the history of the world: humankind, business, innovations, globalization, war, and geo-political power-plays. The very survival of a nation-state is based upon oil.
"The Prize" begins with tiny puddles of black, sticky, goo, in Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s. Locals collected this goo and realized its many uses. In 1859 oil was struck. Almost immediately, the wealth and power amassed from possession and control of oil was realized. The initial trust acts in the U.S. are related to the oil industry, in which Barons quickly gained gargantuan amounts of wealth and political power.
Enter WWII:
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because of oil. Japanese conquests throughout South-East Asia and the Pacific were motivated not only by the quest for dominance but for securing oil and keeping their oil (fuel) supply lines open. Without supply lines of oil, the war machine would completely break down, as it later did (Chapter 8).
The Americans sacrificed a lot, but Japan in large part lost WWII because of its lack of fuel for planes, ships, and ground forces. Domestically, the Japanese economy collapsed because of its inability to import oil. The Kamikazes were brought into existence after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines, in 1944. Lack of oil meant lack of fighter plane fuel. Fuel supplies became so low they actually stopped training Japanese pilots at all. Pilots were ordered to "follow the leader" to the attack site because they didn't even have navigation training.
There was even an "Oil Czar" In the U.S. during World War II in PAW, the Petroleum Administration for War. The Oil Czar was Harold Ickes.
In the European Theater's Eastern Front Germany invaded Russia with Operation Barbarossa mostly to get the oil in the Caucuses (In addition to "lebensraum" and "untermensch" beliefs). In addition, a needed land-route to Iron Ore in Scandinavia via the Baltic SSR Republics was a factor. Hitler also began making synthetic oil because without enough of it Germany's war machine, domestic economy, and arms production were doomed. These synthetic oil factories were top targets in Allied bombing missions.
Oil and the Cold War World:
The Soviets dominated Eastern Europe and exerted its influence after WWII for 45 years because the Allies ran out of gasoline. When the British 3rd Army and U.S. 1st Army were advancing eastward toward Berlin chasing demoralized, retreating, and broken German troops in disarray. But because of the lack of gasoline for the Allied Armies, a million people ended up losing their lives and war was prolonged because the Germans were able to retreat and re-organize (page 388).
If someone says "it's not about the oil" today in 2007, tell them to read this book. Oil encompasses almost all things in our daily lives, whether we are are conscious of it, or not.
Oil, Military, and Economic Interests:
Democratically elected governments are overthrown by foreign governments because of oil. In 1953 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected in Iran. He was an anti-communist. He didn't like the 93% to 7% profit sharing split with a British Oil company operating inside Iran. He changed it to 50-50. The CIA sponsored a coup to overthrow him. Americans were repeatedly told by the U.S. media that Mossadegh was a communist and communist sympathizer, although factually untrue. The American public believed this propaganda, according to poll results. Gullible? Mossadegh was ousted and the Shah was placed in power. Democracy has never been supported in the Middle East and it isn't now by the U.S. government. Also see the Carter Doctrine of 1980.
Most of us as individual consumers literally need oil to function. Dependence upon oil is for the continuation of the nation-state, its military machines, and domestic economy. More critical today, is that nation-states need a *sufficient* supply of it.
This is a positive book. It's a history book.
We're in the heart of the "Oil Age."
Amaze.......2007-06-19
This book is the better form to say what means the oil in the world. The history is well clear end real. There are many important information and who is curious or needs to know the subject this is a perfect one.
It's interesting to know the past to forecast the future..........2007-06-14
I really appreciated Daniel YERGIN's book.
The history of oil is crucial to try to solve the huge demand for future oil. History tells us that oil is limitless in virgin deserts...
The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.......2007-06-12
Excellent, well chronicled book showing the inside of the oil world history. Amazon shipment was a slick execution which makes the book more valuable..This book is a must-have for oil and gas pros.
Book Description
THE ATLAS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY AND POLITICS consists of more than 150 originally produced maps which trace the African experience throughout the world and in America. The volume traces the complete history of African-Americans and their lives, employing artfully-conceived maps, and enhanced by sharply-written historic narratives, graphically reinforcing the facts. This work is appropriate for courses in African American history and American history where instructors would like to integrate African American history into their curricula.
Customer Reviews:
Great Too.......2007-03-14
The delivery came even before the due date and I think that was super-excellent. Keep it up.
Great Reference Guide.......2001-02-01
Excellent, informative reference guide. Clear and concise information. A must for your library!
At Last, a True African-American Atlas.......2001-01-27
This is the type of African-American history book I have been searching for! The Atlas of African-American History and Politics offers not only a detailed chronilogical narrative of the African-American's history from slavery to today, but also clean-crisp visuals to clarify. You will learn and see the actual routes that were taken during slave trades. Not only is this book great for African-American study courses, but every household in America should have a copy of this easy read, yet informative atlas.
At Last, a True African-American Atlas.......2001-01-27
This is the type of African-American history book I have been searching for! The Atlas of African-American History and Politics offers not only a detailed chronilogical narrative of the African-American's history from slavery to today, but also clean-crisp visuals to clarify. You will learn and see the actual routes that were taken during slave trades. Not only is this book great for African-American study courses, but every household in America should have a copy of this easy read, yet informative atlas.
Book Description
Over the past century, the banana industry has radically transformed Latin America and the Caribbean and become a major site of United States–Latin American interaction. Banana Wars is a history of the Americas told through the cultural, political, economic, and agricultural processes that brought bananas from the forests of Latin America and the Caribbean to the breakfast tables of the United States and Europe. The first book to examine these processes in all the western hemisphere regions where bananas are grown for sale abroad, Banana Wars advances the growing body of scholarship focusing on export commodities from historical and social scientific perspectives.
Bringing together the work of anthropologists, sociologists, economists, historians, and geographers, this collection reveals how the banana industry marshaled workers of differing nationalities, ethnicities, and languages and, in so doing, created unprecedented potential for conflict throughout Latin American and the Caribbean. The frequently abusive conditions that banana workers experienced, the contributors point out, gave rise to one of Latin America’s earliest and most militant labor movements. Responding to both the demands of workers’ organizations and the power of U.S. capital, Latin American governments were inevitably affected by banana production. Banana Wars explores how these governments sometimes asserted their sovereignty over foreign fruit companies, but more often became their willing accomplices. With several essays focusing on the operations of the extraordinarily powerful United Fruit Company, the collection also examines the strategies and reactions of the American and European corporations seeking to profit from the sale of bananas grown by people of different cultures working in varied agricultural and economic environments.
Contributors
Philippe Bourgois
Marcelo Bucheli
Dario Euraque
Cindy Forster
Lawrence Grossman
Mark Moberg
Laura T. Raynolds
Karla Slocum
John Soluri
Steve Striffler
Allen Wells
Customer Reviews:
Bananas .......2004-08-09
This book is well researched and very informative. A few of the essays were a little boring to me but the rest more than make up for it. My favorites were by Cindy Forster, Steve Striffler and the conclusion essay (who I forget already the writer) are excellent. These essays give you a look at not only the industry but the people involved and how a single funny fruit has shaped many peoples' way of life. This book is also interesting for the history about how a corporation can care for nothing but money and short change people, their governments and the environment as a way of doing profitable business. I gained a lot of information on how corporations as businessmen do not make wise farmers. I learned quite a bit else but I'll just say I recommend starting with Striffler's essay because it reads as a really good story.
Average customer rating:
- Power, Trade, and War by Edward Mansfield
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Power, Trade, and War
Edward D. Mansfield
Manufacturer: Princeton Univ Pr
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Military Power, Conflict and Trade: Military Power, International Commerce and Great Power Rivalry
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Allies, Adversaries, and International Trade
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Regions of War and Peace (Cambridge Studies in International Relations)
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Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions, and Political Change (Cornell Studies in Political Economy)
ASIN: 0691032882 |
Book Description
This book presents the first attempt to model the relationships among the distribution of power, international trade, and war. Edward Mansfield dispels the widespread belief that a monotonic relationship exists between the distribution of power and patterns of both war and trade. This book presents the first attempt to model the relationships among the distribution of power, international trade, and war. Edward Mansfield dispels the widespread belief that a monotonic relationship exists between the distribution of power and patterns of both war and trade.
Customer Reviews:
Power, Trade, and War by Edward Mansfield.......2003-10-28
Edward Mansfield argues in this book that there is a curvilinear relationship between the concentration of power and war at the level of the international system, based on data for 5-year periods between 1825 and 1964. That is, war is most likely at intermediate levels of power concentration, least likely at either high or low levels. He also argues that war is more (less) likely when there are relatively low (high) levels of international trade flows. The two variables -- power concentration and trade -- explain a high percentage of variance in the war data. Thus, Mansfield concludes that a combination of neo-realist and political economy perspectives is needed to explain war at the level of the international system.
The path to these conclusions is lengthy and difficult, given the disparate approaches to measuring war, but Mansfield does an excellent job of explaining his steps along this tortuous route. An entire chapter (Chapter 2) is devoted to describing and comparing war data collections by previous scholars. Five different definitions of war and nine data sets derived from them are discussed in this chapter. It is interesting and somewhat disheartening that the correlations between system war measures in the different data sets is low. According to the author: "Given the low correlation between these data sets, analysts should be hesitant to use them interchangeably. This is not to imply that any of [them] is "wrong" or misleading. Each is useful contingent on the objectives of the particular analysis." [p. 43]
One of the major subsidiary arguments of the book is that scholars have paid too much attention to "polarity" -- the number of poles (sometimes equated with the number of great powers) in the system. Mansfield agrees with these authors that the distribution of power is a key potential causal variable but disagrees with their contention that polarity is the best way to measure that distribution. He argues instead for using a measure of concentration which takes into account both the number of great powers and the relative distribution of power across them. This argument is made quite persuasively.
Mansfield also suggests that other scholars have erred in testing only monotonic relationships between the distribution of power and war, demonstrating that a curvilinear model explains more variance. Again, I found this demonstration convincing.
Finally, Mansfield shows that multivariate models which combine economic variables (trade levels in particular) with political ones (the concentration of power) explain a higher percentage of variance in systemic war levels than models that do not. This suggests to him that "interdisciplinary research between political scientists and economists needs to be conducted, and is likely to foster a fuller understanding of the relationships among power, trade, and war." [p. 253] Again, the argument was quite convincing.
There is only a short discussion in the book of its implications for current policy. Mansfield implies that the breakup of the Soviet empire "bodes poorly for the avoidance of war in Europe," but that "continued expansion of international trade offers an avenue for improving political relations while, at the same time, increasing global welfare." [pp. 252-3]
What is missing here, unfortunately, is a careful discussion of how far one can generalize or extrapolate from the type of systemic data used in the various data analyses. For example, Mansfield mentions briefly that there are reasons to believe that the introduction of nuclear weapons may have changed the relationship between the distribution of power and war, but does not go on to explain why he fails to take the argument seriously.
Still, Mansfield should be praised for the care and skill he demonstrates in dealing with a wide variety of theories, data sets, and statistical methods. The prose is a bit tortuous, and therefore not suited to use in introductory courses, but as an example for graduate students about to undertake their own empirical quests, it would be hard to find a better exemplar.
Book Description
Despite the United States’ ban on slave importation in 1808, profitable interstate slave trading continued. The nineteenth century’s great cotton boom required vast human labor to bring new lands under cultivation, and many thousands of slaves were torn from their families and sold across state lines in distant markets. Shocked by the cruelty and extent of this practice, abolitionists called upon the federal government to exercise its constitutional authority over interstate commerce and outlaw the interstate selling of slaves. This groundbreaking book is the first to tell the complex story of the decades-long debate and legal battle over federal regulation of the slave trade.
David Lightner explores a wide range of constitutional, social, and political issues that absorbed antebellum America. He revises accepted interpretations of various historical figures, including James Madison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Abraham Lincoln, and he argues convincingly that southern anxiety over the threat to the interstate slave trade was a key precipitant to the secession of the South and the Civil War.
Book Description
Government seizure of the nation’s strikebound steel mills on 8 April 1952 stands as one of President Harry S Truman’s most controversial actions, representing an unprecedented use of presidential power. On 8 June 1952 the United States Supreme Court invalidated Truman’s order with its monumental decision in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer. The history and significance of this case constitute the subject of Maeva Marcus’s meticulously researched, brilliantly analyzed, and authoritative study. From Truman’s initial assertion of "inherent" executive power under the Constitution to the High Court’s seven opinions, Marcus assesses the influence of the case on the doctrine of separation of powers and, specifically, the nature and practice of executive authority. First published in 1977 (Columbia University Press), and reissued here in paperback with a new foreword by Louis Fisher, this book remains the definitive account of the Steel Seizure incident and its political and legal ramifications.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Recycled Dissertation.......2005-06-18
This excellent book is a history of Youngstown v. Sawyer, a landmark Supreme Court case on Presidential powers. The case arose during the Korean War, when the White House nationalized steel factories to block a strike that threatened to disrupt steel production. The Supreme Court firmly rejected Truman's claim of an "inherent" Presidential power to seize private property during wartime. Given the extremist constitutional claims made by the current Bush Administration -- including the power to hold American citizens incommunicado for the duration of the (potentially endless) war on terror -- Youngstown remains hugely relevant today.
Marcus lays out the political, legal, and foreign policy contexts of Youngstown before delving into the details of the litigation and discussing the constitutional significance of the outcome. Her exposition is workmanlike and methodical, as befits a recycled doctoral dissertation. My only real complaint -- hence the rating of four stars -- is that long sections of the book are little more than summaries of legal briefs and courtroom oral arguments. These could have been cut back. But with that qualification, I would recommend the book without reservation to anyone interested in American constitutional history or the institution of the Presidency.
Parallels to our time?.......2004-08-30
In an earlier era, steel making was a key strategic industry for the US. Marcus takes us back to 1952 and the tensions of that era. With World War 2 still recently over and the Korean conflict starting up, the international situation looked grave. She walks us through the events that led Truman to take over the steel mills. She marshalls the arguments pro and con for this, that echoed through the nation.
A very readable study in the limitations of presidential power. Plus a current reader might be struck by the parallels between Truman's actions and Bush's recent decisions. Both presidents asserted prerogatives that were strenuously opposed by others. Though in retrospect, the Cold War and the then developing Korean War were far deadlier for the US than the current situation, where the US has a unipolar hyperpower advantage.
Average customer rating:
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Non-Proliferation Incentives for Russia and Ukraine (Adelphi Papers)
John C. Baker
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0198293712 |
Book Description
The end of the Cold War has created a new group of technology providers in the international marketplace less inclined to exhibit self-restraint in exporting sensitive dual-use technologies that can contribute to the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile systems. John C. Baker focuses on the technology export challenges posed by the nuclear and aeropsace industries inherited by Russia and Ukraine, which are driven by economic difficulties to export sensitive dual-use technologies as an attractive source of gaining hard currency. He proposes an ambitious non-proliferation strategy that takes advantage of new opportunities for using international economic and political incentives to discourage irresponsible export behaviour by these former Soviet defence enterprises while seeking long-term changes in the non-proliferation attitudes of enterprise managers and government leaders.
Book Description
International trade has shaped the modern world, yet until now no single book has been available for both economists and general readers that traces the history of the international economy from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Power and Plenty fills this gap, providing the first full account of world trade and development over the course of the last millennium.
Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke examine the successive waves of globalization and "deglobalization" that have occurred during the past thousand years, looking closely at the technological and political causes behind these long-term trends. They show how the expansion and contraction of the world economy has been directly tied to the two-way interplay of trade and geopolitics, and how war and peace have been critical determinants of international trade over the very long run. The story they tell is sweeping in scope, one that links the emergence of the Western economies with economic and political developments throughout Eurasia centuries ago. Drawing extensively upon empirical evidence and informing their systematic analysis with insights from contemporary economic theory, Findlay and O'Rourke demonstrate the close interrelationships of trade and warfare, the mutual interdependence of the world's different regions, and the crucial role these factors have played in explaining modern economic growth.
Power and Plenty is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the origins of today's international economy, the forces that continue to shape it, and the economic and political challenges confronting policymakers in the twenty-first century.
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- U.S. Grant: The Making of a General, 1861-1863 (The American Crisis Series)
- Under Fire
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