Product 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1559 in Books
• Published on: 1993-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 928 pages

Amazon.com
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.

From Publishers Weekly
Energy consultant Yergin limns oil's central role in most of the wars and many international crises of the 20th century. "A timely, information-packed, authoritative history of the petroleum industry, tracing its ramifications, national and geopolitical, to the present day," said PW. Photos. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This book does not require recent events in the Persian Gulf to make it an essential addition for most public libraries as well as all college libraries. Written by one of the foremost U.S. authorities on energy, it is a major work in the field, replete with enough insight to satisfy the scholar and sufficient concern with the drama and colorful personalities in the history of oil to capture the interest of the general public. Though lengthy, the book never drags in developing its themes: the relationship of oil to the rise of modern capitalism; the intertwining relations between oil, politics, and international power; and the relationship between oil and society in what Yergin calls today's age of "Hydrocarbon Man." Parts of the story have been told as authoritatively before, e.g., in Irvine Anderson's Aramco: The United States and Saudi Arabia ( LJ 7/81), but never in as comprehensive a fashion as here.
- Joseph R. Rudolph Jr., Towson State Univ., Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

The Prize: A terrific read on the history of Oil and how it effects us today.
One of the few books that I enthusiastically have recommended. Great historical information for history buffs. Great economic information and how it effects us even today. It will truely help you understand the dynamics of war, politics, oil.

You will not understand oil without this book
This book was written when energy, not terrorism, was the most pressing domestic problem. Oil is so essential to the survival of our economy. "The Prize" traces the history of oil from its humble, entrepreneurial beginnings in the hillsides of western Pennsylvania, to the shrewd domination of the industry by John D. Rockefeller, to the breakup of Standard Oil, and through the discovery of oil in the farthest flung corners of the globe.

Incomparable
Mr. Yergin undoubtedly deserved the Pulitzer Prize for this masterpiece on the history of oil industry. He succeeded in covering about a century and a half of discoveries and developments providing accurate information on historical events, national and international politics and key players, achieving to write a reference book on the subject.
Certainly no author whomsoever can be impartial - and throughout the reading one may well notice that Mr. Yergin is writing from a North-American standpoint. However, partiality is subtile and does not jeopardise his work's strict conformity to facts. Actually, it is only now and then - as in the case of Mossadegh and Nasser - that one might notice that the author could have stepped forward into a less contained critique of Washington's inertia and refrained from a more stark appraisal of Western European role.
Nonetheless, Mr. Yergin is probably the best historian of the subject, faithful to facts, besides being able to imprint a light and entertaining style into his narrative.