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I never got to see all of it, but the 1992 PBS miniseries on The Prize was very good, and was part of what launched this book to superstar status. That, and coming out right after the First Gulf War didn’t hurt at all.

In fact, a little too close to the war. The end of the miniseries actually a very good section on fighting all the oil well fires Saddam Hussein left behind when forced out of Kuwait. The book talks about the destruction, but doesn’t actually get to the recovery effort. I get the idea that largely happened between the writing of the book and the production of the series.

What we do get is a history of big companies and bigger personalities from about 1846 to the Gulf War. As you might expect, this history breaks into several sections, and Yergin does a good job of presentation of them. Thanks to touching on other subjects of long fascination and study, his five chapters on World War II were something of a highlight, especially since he takes a long hard look at Germany and Japan’s pre-war maneuvering around something that had already been made abundantly clear was essential. Particularly interesting was the Roosevelt administration’s internal struggles over when and if to subject Japan to an embargo. Naturally, as with anything with this much infighting, the eventual answer is not what you’d expect. Oil wasn’t embargoed, but all Japanese assets in the US were frozen, and they had to apply to the government for concessions to be allowed to use their own money (after stating what it would be used for). Since the man in charge of letting the concessions was a big proponent of an embargo, he didn’t let them use their assets for anything.

The chapters on the ’50s and ’60s are more laying the groundwork for the part on the ’70s, which of course is one of the big centerpieces of the book. After WWII there is a continual glut of oil on the market. Oil (gasoline) consumption is shooting up, and everyone’s afraid of existing, and necessarily finite, production fields running out, but exploration for new oil fields keeps finding more faster than demand can go up. Everyone (especially new Middle Eastern countries) want in on the money to be made producing something everyone wants, so supply stays high, and the various producers are fighting to provide the best deal.

This eventually changes; OPEC isn’t any better at controlling production when formed, but eventually agreement comes together, and then Arab-Israeli Wars provide the will. Also, the glut has come to an end. Enough oil is still being produced, but just barely, and the various threats to supply have an immense effect. Supply and demand being what it is, this provides incentive for further exploration and production, and Alaska and North Sea oil prevent the Iran-Iraq War from derailing global supply security again.

While Yergin does provide some good numbers as he goes, I really wish he’d sprinkled a few charts and graphs around, especially for this part. Being given a number at one point, and then another a chapter or two later, and knowing that yes, they are different, isn’t enough. I’d like to see some more compiled statistics as we go for where oil was coming from at certain times, where it was going, and how long reserves were expected to last. Similarly, the wild swings in oil supply and prices in this period drove a lot of inflation, and I’d have appreciated it if he went into that a bit more. I can’t really blame him for not doing so, 900 pages is big enough, and it’s getting further from his field, but I would like to see some analysis on how all this interacts.

Back on continuing themes, I should note that Yergin is decidedly pro-big business. This generally only has a distant effect on his narrative, but while he mentions the conservation and ecological movements, and how they curtailed demand during the ’70s, he never does talk about the ecological effects of emissions, or even drilling, at all. He does talk about the switch over of power generation from coal to oil, and the fact that helped pollution levels, but gives no details. (And the balance of energy sources at various times is another set of charts I’d like to see.)

More noticeably, Yergin casts a distinctly jaundiced eye on the late Nineteenth Century Progressive movement. Standard Oil is something of a flawed hero in his telling, and Progressivism a nearly incomprehensible movement that tore it apart as a byproduct. Certainly, he makes no effort to understand it.

But, this is a big important book both because of and in spite of its unstated viewpoint. And adding in the bits I’d like to see would make it a better history, but detract from its appeal to a broader audience, and it is more than good enough to deserve that audience.