PETROLEUM: THE FATAL DEPENDENCE – VOLUME A

Oil was the driving force and fuel of the 20th century. Combined with the widespread use of the internal combustion engine, it had a catalytic effect on the economic and social development of the planet. Thanks to the discovery of large deposits in the United States, Russia and the Middle East and to a multiform system of production, refining, distribution and marketing established and operated for many years by the major oil companies, oil has imposed itself as the main fuel, contributing substantially to the achieved industrialization and technological progress, especially in the second half of the last century. One of the key themes that the book highlights is that the major political and economic developments of the planet in recent years have been played out around the efforts, aspirations and struggles to control and exploit key energy resources, with a focus on hydrocarbons, to the extent that it is reasonable to speak of an unprecedented economic and political hostage situation. In our time oil is a necessary and fatal dependency. In the first volume of this two-volume work, an extensive and very interesting historical reference to the evolution of oil from antiquity to the present day is attempted. The main themes of the book are the discovery and exploitation of oil in Persia and the Middle East, the prevalence of oil over electromobility, and the role it played in the outcome of the two great wars, the rise of the big oil companies (known as the ‘7 Sisters’) and the post-war period of cheap oil, the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 and the rise of OPEO, and the role of oil in the global economic and social life today. A separate chapter answers the question of whether Greece has oil deposits and how they can be exploited.