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“The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power”
by Daniel Yergin
1991 by Free Press
Yergin’s classic book The Prize surveys a sweeping history of oil, and its storied relationship to War, Geopolitics, and Imperial ambitions. The strengths of the book are its thoroughly detailed accounts of events such as World War II, The Arab Oil Embargo, and the various European/American meddlings in the Middle East region. No other book takes such a comprehensive view of oil’s geopolitical history, and at 800 pages this book actually seems short for such a major topic.
On the other hand, there are some severe limitations to Yergin’s analysis. Yergin tells the story of oil from a mainstream/dominant perspective, which means the entire history is in the words of capitalists, heads of states, diplomats, etc.; in a word, the story of oil is told from the perspective of imperialism. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of Capitalism 
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