military

The Prize follows the major developments in the oil industry, from its inception with the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company through the Gulf War.

The Prize well deserves the praise it has received. Yergin's research and knowledge of the history of the oil industry are obvious and make this a great historical work, yet the length and the abundance of detail do not impinge on the readability of the book.

Among many insightful sections of this book, I found the chapters on the role of oil in the Second World War to be particularly interesting. After reading other books about the battles of that war, it was useful to learn something about the logistics behind those battles.

It is unfortunate that this book is already a decade old. In his epilogue, Yergin touches on the Gulf War and the effects of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world's largest oil producer in the late 1980's, but this was not quite history yet when he was writing The Prize.

This book is a complete and thorough history of the most important natural resource. Its reach is unequalled. From the beginning of the industry in western Pennsylvania to oil's modern strategic importance, the book is simply awesome in scope. Yergin does an excellent job of telling the story and backing it with plenty of source information and footnotes.

After reading this book, I see World War II in a completely new way. Oil as a strategic resource has changed the face of warfare. I always knew this, but couldn't tell you exactly why. After reading this book, I can tell you why. I loved the history of the Germans' and Japanese efforts at synthetic fuels productions. This book also contains a good chapter about the Iran-Iraq war, a topic that has been relatively difficult to find good information on.

If I was forced to make one critical comment about this book I would say that I would have liked to have had one chapter describing some of the basic technical processes involved in refining oil. But with such a long and informative book, I suppose everybody could list "one" more chapter that they would have liked.

Read this book.

This book is comprehensive and well written. It will give the reader a complete history of the development of the oil industry and how it has contributed to the shaping of world events. It is especially relevant to anyone seeking to understand what is happening in the Middle East