KOSTIS
STABOLIS
Oil became the driving force and fuel of the 20th century, and together with the widespread use of the internal combustion engine, had decisive consequences for the economic and social development of the planet.
Thanks to the discovery of major deposits in the United States, Russia, and the Middle East, and to a complex system of production, refining, distribution, and trade established and operated for decades by major oil companies, oil established itself as the dominant fuel, playing a key role in industrialisation and the technological progress of the second half of the last century.
One of the central themes highlighted in the book is that the major political and economic developments of recent decades have unfolded around the struggle for control and exploitation of key energy resources, particularly hydrocarbons, to the point that it is now reasonable to speak of a form of unprecedented economic and political dependence. In this sense, oil has become in our time both a necessary and a fateful dependency.
The first volume of this two-part work begins with a detailed and highly engaging historical overview of the development of oil from antiquity to the present day.
Its main focus is the discovery and exploitation of oil in Persia and the Middle East, the rise of oil over electric power, its role in the outcome of the two World Wars, the emergence of the major oil companies (the so-called “Seven Sisters”), and the post-war era of cheap oil. It also examines the oil crises of 1973 and 1979, the rise of OPEC, and the role oil plays today in global economic and social affairs. A dedicated chapter addresses the question of whether Greece has oil and how it could be utilised.
