The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

Total world oil consumption grew almost 30 percent between 1990 and 2008—from 67 million to 86 million barrels per day. Over the same time, oil demand in India more than doubled and in China, more than tripled.

The second theme is that of oil as a commodity intimately intertwined with national strategies and global politics and power.

George Bissell, who, more than anybody else, was responsible for the creation of the oil industry.

Signal Hill was only the most dramatic of a large number of substantial discoveries in and around Los Angeles, which made California the nation’s number-one producing state in 1923, and the source that year of fully one quarter of the world’s entire output of oil.

A third theme in the history of oil illuminates how ours has become a “Hydrocarbon Society” and we, in the language of anthropologists, “Hydrocarbon Man.”

The growth of California production was dramatic—from 470,000 barrels in 1893 to 24 million barrels in 1903—and, for most of the next dozen years, California was to lead the nation in oil production. By 1910, its output would reach 73 million barrels, more than that of any foreign nation, and 22 percent of total world production.

“Simplicity rules everything worth while, and whenever I have been up against a business proposition which, after taking thought, I could not reduce to simplicity, I have realized that it was hopelessly wrong and I have let it alone.”

Yet even while becoming the richest man in America, he maintained a curious frugality. He insisted, to the distress of his family, on wearing the same old suits until finally they became so shiny that they had to be replaced. One of his favorite dishes remained bread and milk.

“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”

The first is the rise and development of capitalism and modern business.

The first is the rise and development of capitalism and modern business.

The second theme is that of oil as a commodity intimately intertwined with national strategies and global politics and power.

A third theme in the history of oil illuminates how ours has become a “Hydrocarbon Society” and we, in the language of anthropologists, “Hydrocarbon Man.”

Total world oil consumption grew almost 30 percent between 1990 and 2008—from 67 million to 86 million barrels per day. Over the same time, oil demand in India more than doubled and in China, more than tripled.

glimpses—and in the determination of one man, George Bissell, who, more than anybody else, was responsible for the creation of the oil industry.

called “the Great Game”—the struggle to accomplish and build, and the drive to make money, both for its own sake and as a register of achievement.

“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”

They also arranged guaranteed shipments of Russian oil to Europe at attractive prices. They were the Rothschilds.

“Simplicity rules everything worth while, and whenever I have been up against a business proposition which, after taking thought, I could not reduce to simplicity, I have realized that it was hopelessly wrong and I have let it alone.”

It was also a catastrophe for the political systems of much of Europe, and for the economies of all concerned.

recall the war as “the well-spring of our discontents.”