A Pipeline Runs Through It: The Story of Oil from Ancient Times to the First World War

by Keith Fisher

Petroleum has always been used by humans: as an adhesive by Neanderthals, as a waterproofing agent in Noah's Ark and as a weapon during the Crusades. Its eventual extraction from the earth in vast quantities transformed light, heat and power. A Pipeline Runs Through It is a fresh, comprehensive in-depth look at the social, economic, political and geopolitical forces involved in our transition to the modern oil age. It tells an extraordinary origin story, from the pre-industrial history of petroleum through to large-scale production in the mid-nineteenth century and the development of a dominant, fully-fledged oil industry by the early twentieth century. This was always a story of imperialist violence, political disenfranchisement, economic exploitation and environmental destruction. The near total eradication of the Native Americans of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio has barely been mentioned as a precondition for the emergence of the first industrialised oil region in the United States. Britain's invasion of Upper Burma in 1885 was perhaps the first war fought, at least in part, for access to oil; the growth of Royal Dutch-Shell involved the genocidal subjugation of people of the Dutch East Indies; and the exploitation of oil in the Middle East arose seamlessly out of Britain's prior political and military interventions in the region. Finally, in an entirely new analysis, the book shows how the British navy's increasingly desperate dependence on vulnerable foreign sources of oil may have been a catalytic ingredient in the outbreak of the First World War. The rise of oil has shaped the modern world, and this is the book to understand it.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, World History

752 pages, Hardcover

Published August 4, 2022

Reviews

[Daniel Gusev · Rating 4 out of 5]

A grand and accomplished - even if tedious - perspective on geopolitical and economic development and a vivid characterisation of social changes - enforced and accepted - through a prism of a fossil fuel.

A black paint to besmirch otherwise whitewashed noble protectorates over new lands for their riches - organised by major powers tussling for regional supremacy and primacy in supply chains resilience , resource importation or exports domination.

History revolves in grand cycles. One could see in Curzon correspondence or Churchill warnings concerns over Russian or German imperial rise as both fought for regions of influence to capture mineral pools, just like in the Theodore Rosevelt’s conquest of the isthmus of Panama to protect against rising Japan or add to the military flexibility one could glean current high currents - a classical repetition if not of Monroe Doctrine of 1823, then of a Naval doctrine of Mahan of early 1900s.

[Regi Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing scholarship and research. Good structure and narrative.

But DENSE.

[William T · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important book. Be prepared to concentrate however. It is a complex web of private and national interests on a global scale. The build up to WWI was especially fascinating. I picked it up two years ago, put it down, and just came back to it last week. I rejoined the "story" as if I had neve left.

[Sebastian Quaade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read from the second chapter onward. I especially appreciated the third chapter on the genesis of industrial oil production in the Russian empire, as well as the last chapter, which weaves a deft macropolitical analysis of how the patchwork of interdependencies created by reliance on oil contributed to the emergence of the first world war.