Keith Fisher A Pipeline Runs Through It : The Story of Oil from Ancient Times

Fascinating revelations Max Hastings, Sunday TimesAn immensely valuable guide to a great and terrible industry The Economist The book I have long been waiting for... Essential reading Michael KlarePetroleum has always been used by humans as an adhesive by Neanderthals, as a waterproofing agent in Noahs Ark and as a weapon during the Crusades. Its eventual extraction from the earth in vast quantities transformed light, heat and power. A Pipeline Runs Through It is a fresh, indepth look at the social, economic, and geopolitical forces involved in our transition to the modern oil age. It tells an extraordinary origin story, from the preindustrial history of petroleum through to largescale production in the midnineteenth century and the development of a dominant, fullyfledged oil industry by the early twentieth century. This was always a story of imperialist violence, economic exploitation and environmental destruction. The near total eradication of the Native Americans of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio has barely been mentioned as a precondition for the emergence of the first oil region in the United States. The growth of Royal DutchShell involved the genocidal subjugation of people of the Dutch East Indies and the exploitation of oil in the Middle East arose seamlessly out of Britains prior political and military interventions in the region. Finally, in an entirely new analysis, the book shows how the British navys increasingly desperate dependence on vulnerable foreign... | Keith Fisher A Pipeline Runs Through It : The Story of Oil from Ancient Times