Download or read book Oil Palm written by Jonathan E. Robins and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2021-05-21 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil palms are ubiquitous—grown in nearly every tropical country, they supply the world with more edible fat than any other plant and play a role in scores of packaged products, from lipstick and soap to margarine and cookies. And as Jonathan E. Robins shows, sweeping social transformations carried the plant around the planet. First brought to the global stage in the holds of slave ships, palm oil became a quintessential commodity in the Industrial Revolution. Imperialists hungry for cheap fat subjugated Africa's oil palm landscapes and the people who worked them. In the twentieth century, the World Bank promulgated oil palm agriculture as a panacea to rural development in Southeast Asia and across the tropics. As plantation companies tore into rainforests, evicting farmers in the name of progress, the oil palm continued its rise to dominance, sparking new controversies over trade, land and labor rights, human health, and the environment. By telling the story of the oil palm across multiple centuries and continents, Robins demonstrates how the fruits of an African palm tree became a key commodity in the story of global capitalism, beginning in the eras of slavery and imperialism, persisting through decolonization, and stretching to the present day.
Download or read book Oil Power and War written by Matthieu Auzanneau and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of oil is one of hubris, fortune, betrayal, and destruction. It is the story of a resource that has been undeniably central to the creation of our modern culture, and ever-present during the darkest exploits of empire the world over. For the past 150 years, oil has become the most essential ingredient for economic, military, and political power. And it has brought us to our present moment in which political leaders and the fossil-fuel industry consider extraordinary, and extraordinarily dangerous, policy on a world stage marked by shifting power bases. Upending the conventional wisdom by crafting a “people’s history,” award-winning journalist Matthieu Auzanneau deftly traces how oil became a national and then global addiction, outlines the enormous consequences of that addiction, sheds new light on major historical and contemporary figures, and raises new questions about stories we thought we knew well: What really sparked the oil crises in the 1970s, the shift away from the gold standard at Bretton Woods, or even the financial crash of 2008? How has oil shaped the events that have defined our times: two world wars, the Cold War, the Great Depression, ongoing wars in the Middle East, the advent of neoliberalism, and the Great Recession, among them? With brutal clarity, Oil, Power, and War exposes the heavy hand oil has had in all of our lives—and illustrates how much heavier that hand could get during the increasingly desperate race to control the last of the world’s easily and cheaply extractable reserves.
Download or read book Crude Volatility written by Robert McNally and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations. Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.
Download or read book Empires and Anarchies written by Michael Quentin Morton and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil lies at the heart of the modern history of the Middle East. For decades, the world’s largest oil reserves have enriched the region’s nations. But oil wealth has not brought with it universal prosperity. It has, though, transformed the Middle Eastern people and societies—enriching empires and engendering anarchies. Empires and Anarchies is an unconventional history of oil in the Middle East. In Michael Quentin Morton’s account the burnt-out remains of Saddam Hussein’s armaments and the human tragedy of the Arab Spring are as much of the story as the shimmering skylines of oil-rich nations. From the first explorers trudging through the desert to the excesses of the Peacock Throne and the high stakes of OPEC, Morton lays out the history of oil in compelling detail, arguing that oil simultaneously enriched and fractured the Middle East, eroding traditional ways of life, and eventually contributing to the rise of Islamic radicalism. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in the promises and peril of the world’s oil boom.
Download or read book Oil Powers a History of the U S Saudi Alliance written by Victor Mcfarland and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Victor McFarland challenges the view that the U.S.-Saudi alliance is the inevitable consequence of American energy demand and Saudi Arabia's huge oil reserves. Oil Powers traces the growth of the alliance through a dense web of political, economic, and social connections that bolstered royal and executive power and the national-security state.
Download or read book History of the European Oil and Gas Industry written by J. Craig and published by Geological Society of London. This book was released on 2018 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the European oil and gas industry reflects local as well as global political events, economic constraints and the personal endeavours of individual petroleum geoscientists as much as it does the development of technologies and the underlying geology of the region. The first commercial oil wells in Europe were drilled in Poland in 1853, Romania in 1857, Germany in 1859 and Italy in 1860. The 23 papers in this volume focus on the history and heritage of the oil and gas industry in the key European oil-producing countries from the earliest onshore drilling to its development into the modern industry that we know today. The contributors chronicle the main events and some of the major players that shaped the industry in Europe. The volume also marks several important anniversaries, including 150 years of oil exploration in Poland and Romania, the centenary of the drilling of the first oil well in the UK and 50 years of oil production from onshore Spain.
Download or read book Crude Reality written by Brian C. Black and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise, accessible introduction to the history of oil tells the story of how petroleum has shaped human life since it was first discovered oozing inconspicuously from the soil. For a century, human dependence on petroleum caused little discomfort as we enjoyed the heyday of cheap crude—a glorious episode of energy gluttony that was destined to end. Today, we see the disastrous results in environmental degradation, political instability, and world economic disparity in the waning years of a petroleum-powered civilization—lessons rooted in the finite nature of oil. Considering the nature of oil itself as well as humans’ remarkable relationship with it, Brian C. Black spotlights our modern conundrum and then explores the challenges of our future without oil. It is this essential context, he argues, that will prepare us for our energy transition. Bringing his global perspective and wide-ranging technical knowledge, Black has written an essential contribution to environmental history and the rapidly emerging field of energy history in this sweeping, forward-looking survey.
Download or read book Machineries of Oil written by Katayoun Shafiee and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-08-15 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The emergence of the international oil corporation as a political actor in the twentieth century, seen in BP's infrastructure and information arrangements in Iran. In the early twentieth century, international oil corporations emerged as a new kind of political actor. The development of the world oil industry, argues Katayoun Shafiee, was one of the era's largest political projects of techno-economic development. In this book, Shafiee maps the machinery of oil operations in the Anglo-Iranian oil industry between 1901 and 1954, tracking the organizational work involved in moving oil through a variety of technical, legal, scientific, and administrative networks. She shows that, in a series of disagreements, the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, which later became BP) relied on various forms of information management to transform political disputes into techno-economic calculation, guaranteeing the company complete control over profits, labor, and production regimes. She argues that the building of alliances and connections that constituted Anglo-Iranian oil's infrastructure reconfigured local politics of oil regions and examines how these arrangements in turn shaped the emergence of both nation-state and transnational oil corporation. Drawing on her extensive archival and field research in Iran, Shafiee investigates the surprising ways in which nature, technology, and politics came together in battles over mineral rights; standardizing petroleum expertise; formulas for calculating profits, production rates, and labor; the “Persianization” of employees; nationalism and oil nationalization; and the long-distance machinery of an international corporation. Her account shows that the politics of oil cannot be understood in isolation from its technical dimensions. The open access edition of this book was made possible by generous funding from Knowledge Unlatched.
Download or read book History Exploration Exploitation of Oil and Gas written by Silvia Fernanda Figueirôa and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume discusses scientific and technological aspects of the history of the oil and gas industry in national and international contexts. The search for oil for industrial uses began in the nineteenth century, the first drills made in Azerbaijan and the United States. This intense search for a substance to become one of the most important energy sources was, many times, based on skill as well as luck, resulting in knowledge and the development of prospecting and exploration technologies. The demand for oil improved expertise in geological science, in areas such as micropaleontology, stratigraphy or sedimentology and informed different disciplines such as geophysics. These contributions made possible not only the discovery of new oil fields but also new applications and methods of exploration. Beyond the scientific and technological aspects, an industry that grew to such considerable size also impacted the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and diplomatic issues in history. The book approaches these changes in different scales, countries, areas, and perspectives. This edited book appeals to researchers, student, practitioners in various fields from geology and geophysics to history. It is also an important resource for professionals in the oil and gas industry.
Download or read book Texas Oil and Gas written by Jeff A. Spencer and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2013-09-16 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Texas Oil and Gas documents in postcards the rapid growth of the Texas petroleum industry from its beginnings near Corsicana in the 1890s through the next several decades of oil booms throughout the state. The young 20th century opened with the Lucas Gusher at Spindletop in 1901. Thousands rushed from the oilfields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia to find work and riches. Continued drilling success along the Texas Gulf Coast transformed Houston into a major city and the Beaumont area into a major petrochemical center. Through the 1910s and 1920s, oil booms occurred in North Texas, the Panhandle, Central Texas, and West Texas. The giant East Texas oilfield, the second largest North American oilfield to Alaskas North Slope, was discovered in 1930. Texas oil replaced coal as fuel for the nations railroads and provided fuel for our military in two world wars.
Download or read book Oil Revolution written by Christopher R. W. Dietrich and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-16 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through innovative and expansive research, Oil Revolution analyzes the tensions faced and networks created by anti-colonial oil elites during the age of decolonization following World War II. This new community of elites stretched across Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, and Libya. First through their western educations and then in the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, these elites transformed the global oil industry. Their transnational work began in the early 1950s and culminated in the 1973–4 energy crisis and in the 1974 declaration of a New International Economic Order in the United Nations. Christopher R. W. Dietrich examines how these elites brokered and balanced their ambitions via access to oil, the most important natural resource of the modern era.
Download or read book The History of the Standard Oil Company written by Ida Minerva Tarbell and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Natural History of an Arctic Oil Field written by Joe C. Truett and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2000-06-09 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In spite of the harsh conditions that characterize the Arctic, it is a surprisingly fragile ecosystem. The exploration for oil in the Arctic over the past 30 years has had profound effects on the plants and animals that inhabit this frozen clime. The Natural History of an Arctic Oil Field synthesizes decades of research on these myriad impacts. Specialists with years of field experience have contributed to this volume to create the first widely available synopsis of the ecology and wildlife biology of animals and plants living in close association with an actively producing oil field. - First widely available synthesis of arctic oil field ecology and wildlife biology - Concise yet readable treatment of a diverse polar ecosystem - Useful for land managers, policy makers as well as ecologists, and population biologists - Chapters authored by recognized authorities and contributions are peer-reviewed for accuracy and scientific rigor - Illustrations attractively designed to enhance comprehension
Download or read book Oil Culture written by Ross Barrett and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 150 years since the birth of the petroleum industry oil has saturated our culture, fueling our cars and wars, our economy and policies. But just as thoroughly, culture saturates oil. So what exactly is “oil culture”? This book pursues an answer through petrocapitalism’s history in literature, film, fine art, wartime propaganda, and museum displays. Investigating cultural discourses that have taken shape around oil, these essays compose the first sustained attempt to understand how petroleum has suffused the Western imagination. The contributors to this volume examine the oil culture nexus, beginning with the whale oil culture it replaced and analyzing literature and films such as Giant, Sundown, Bernardo Bertolucci’s La Via del Petrolio, and Ben Okri’s “What the Tapster Saw”; corporate art, museum installations, and contemporary photography; and in apocalyptic visions of environmental disaster and science fiction. By considering oil as both a natural resource and a trope, the authors show how oil’s dominance is part of culture rather than an economic or physical necessity. Oil Culture sees beyond oil capitalism to alternative modes of energy production and consumption. Contributors: Georgiana Banita, U of Bamberg; Frederick Buell, Queens College; Gerry Canavan, Marquette U; Melanie Doherty, Wesleyan College; Sarah Frohardt-Lane, Ripon College, Matthew T. Huber, Syracuse U; Dolly Jørgensen, Umeå U; Stephanie LeMenager, U of Oregon; Hanna Musiol, Northeastern U; Chad H. Parker, U of Louisiana at Lafayette; Ruth Salvaggio, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Heidi Scott, Florida International U; Imre Szeman, U of Alberta; Michael Watts, U of California, Berkeley; Jennifer Wenzel, Columbia University; Sheena Wilson, U of Alberta; Rochelle Raineri Zuck, U of Minnesota Duluth; Catherine Zuromskis, U of New Mexico.
Download or read book Early Oklahoma Oil written by Kenny Arthur Franks and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oklahoma oil boom was a fabulous time, never to be repeated, and these photographs capture the forests of derricks, overflowing tanks, gambling wildcatters, and men and women who made it all possible. The text ties them all to their historical place, providing an exciting panorama of the young industry that was such a vital element in the development of the Sooner State.
Download or read book The History of the Standard Oil Company written by Ida Minerva Tarbell and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2020-09-28 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the busiest corners of the globe at the opening of the year 1872 was a strip of Northwestern Pennsylvania, not over fifty miles long, known the world over as the Oil Regions. Twelve years before this strip of land had been but little better than a wilderness; its chief inhabitants the lumbermen, who every season cut great swaths of primeval pine and hemlock from its hills, and in the spring floated them down the Allegheny River to Pittsburg. The great tides of Western emigration had shunned the spot for years as too rugged and unfriendly for settlement, and yet in twelve years this region avoided by men had been transformed into a bustling trade centre, where towns elbowed each other for place, into which three great trunk railroads had built branches, and every foot of whose soil was fought for by capitalists. It was the discovery and development of a new raw product, petroleum, which had made this change from wilderness to market-place. This product in twelve years had not only peopled a waste place of the earth, it had revolutionised the world’s methods of illumination and added millions upon millions of dollars to the wealth of the United States. Petroleum as a curiosity, and indeed in a small way as an article of commerce, was no new thing when its discovery in quantities called the attention of the world to this corner of Northwestern Pennsylvania. The journals of many an early explorer of the valleys of the Allegheny and its tributaries tell of springs and streams the surfaces of which were found covered with a thick oily substance which burned fiercely when ignited and which the Indians believed to have curative properties. As the country was opened, more and more was heard of these oil springs. Certain streams came to be named from the quantities of the substance found on the surface of the water, as “Oil Creek” in Northwestern Pennsylvania, “Old Greasy” or Kanawha in West Virginia. The belief in the substance as a cure-all increased as time went on and in various parts of the country it was regularly skimmed from the surface of the water as cream from a pan, or soaked up by woollen blankets, bottled, and peddled as a medicine for man and beast. Up to the beginning of the 19th century no oil seems to have been obtained except from the surfaces of springs and streams. That it was to be found far below the surface of the earth was discovered independently at various points in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania by persons drilling for salt-water to be used in manufacturing salt. Not infrequently the water they found was mixed with a dark-green, evil-smelling substance which was recognised as identical with the well-known “rock-oil.” It was necessary to rid the water of this before it could be used for salt, and in many places cisterns were devised in which the brine was allowed to stand until the oil had risen to the surface. It was then run into the streams or on the ground. This practice was soon discovered to be dangerous, so easily did the oil ignite. In several places, particularly in Kentucky, so much oil was obtained with the salt-water that the wells had to be abandoned. Certain of these deserted salt wells were opened years after, when it was found that the troublesome substance which had made them useless was far more valuable than the brine the original drillers sought.
Download or read book Crude written by Sonia Shah and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crude is the unexpurgated story of oil, from the circumstances of its birth millions of years ago to the spectacle of its rise as the indispensable ingredient of modern life. In addition to fueling our SUVs and illuminating our cities, crude oil and its byproducts fertilize our produce, pave our roads, and make plastic possible. "Newborn babies," observes author Sonia Shah, "slide from their mothers into petro-plastic-gloved hands, are swaddled in petro-polyester blankets, and are hurried off to be warmed by oil-burning heaters." The modern world is drenched in oil; Crude tells how it came to be. A great human drama emerges, of discovery and innovation, risk, the promise of riches, and the power of greed. Shah infuses recent twists in the story with equal drama, through chronicles of colorful modern-day characters — from the hundreds of Nigerian women who stormed a Chevron plant to a monomaniacal scientist for whom life is the pursuit of this earthblood and its elusive secret. Shah moves masterfully between scientific, economic, political, and social analysis, capturing the many sides of the indispensable mineral that we someday may have to find a way to live without.
