Product Description

This book is a gripping account of the murky world of the international oil industry and its role in world politics. Scandals about oil are familiar to most of us. From George W. Bush's election victory to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US politics and oil enjoy a controversially close relationship. The US economy relies upon the cheap and unlimited supply of this single fuel. William Engdahl takes the reader through a history of the oil industry's grip on the world economy. His revelations are startling. Moving from the post-World War I

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139017 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Review
"'This is the only accurate account I have seen of what really happened with the price of oil in 1973. I strongly recommend reading it.' Sheikh Zaki Yamani, former Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia 'I recommend this book to all who wish to know how the world is really run, what are the systems behind the sub-systems we perceive in the daily media, and what are the antecedents of the present global political dilemmas.' Dr Frederick Wills, former Foreign Minister, Guyana 'For those truly interested about how the world economy functions, this book will be greatly useful. The book treats especially well the political goals of Britain, a thread in modern history all too often overlooked.' Stephen J. Lewis, economist, City of London '... one of the most readable books I have ever seen. It will shock people, but it is needed. William Engdahl has found a common thread that ties hundreds of events which, at first glance, appear to be unassociated.' Leon D. Richardson, Far East Financial columnist, industrialist, advisory board, Sloan School of Management, Massachussetts Institute of Technology"

Leon D. Richardson, Far East Financial columnist, industrialist, advisory board, Sloan School of Management, Massachussetts Institute of Technology
.. one of the most readable books I have ever seen. It will shock people, but it is needed.

From the Publisher
This book is a gripping account of the murky world of the international oil industry and its role in world politics.

Customer Reviews

Full spectrum dominance
H. Kissinger has said: 'control energy and you control the nations.'
W. Engdahl explains the all importance of oil in world domination, and more specifically its geopolitical, military, economic and financial impact.

Oil became for the first time an important raw material during World War I, when air, mobile tank and swifter naval warfare held the upper hand.

After WW I the British sought to secure their petroleum supplies, by creating the League of Nations, which was only a facade of international legitimacy to a naked imperial seizure of territory.
British imperial power was based on 3 pillars: control of world sea-lines, of world banking and finance and of strategic raw materials. Through its free trade policy (liberalism) it tried to preserve and to serve the interests of an exclusive private power: a tiny number of bankers and institutions of the City of London.

Its hegemony was attacked and replaced by the US after WW II, confirmed by the Bretton-Woods Agreements with the creation of the IMF and the World bank.
The new hegemon was (and is ) built on 2 pillars: military power and the dollar, but those pillars are fundamentally intertwined with one commodity: petroleum, the basis of the world economy's growth engine.

10 % of the Marshall aid to Europe after WW II served to buy US oil. The big US oil companies asked top dollars for their exports and obtained also that the aid could not be used to build refineries.

The Vietnam war constituted a massive diversion of the US industry into the production of defense goods (pillar 1).
The first oil shock of 1973 made the US banks the giants of world banking and the oil companies the giants of world industry: 'The artificial oil price inflation was a manipulation of the world economy of such a hideous dimension that it created an unprecedented transfer of the wealth of the entire world into the hands of a tiny minority. It was no less than a global world taxation through petrodollars.' (pillar 2, confirmed by Sheikh Zaki Yamani).
The oil companies also took the 'blossom of the nuclear rose'.

A cardinal goal of US foreign and military policy is control of every major existing and potential oil source. Such control would permit it to decide who gets how much energy and at what price: 'a true weapon of mass destruction'.

William Engdahl's brilliant but frightening analysis puts in the same framework Iraq, the Balkan wars, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergency of the oligarchs, the financial crises across Asia, the civil wars in Africa, the IMF and World bank policies, the fall of the Shah (after the collapse of the negotiations with BP), as well as the murders or 'accidental' deaths of W. Rathenau, I. Krueger, E. Mattei, J. Ponto and A. Moro.

At the start of the new millenium, the US has a near monopoly on military technology and might, commands the world's reserve currency and is able to control the assets of much of the industrial world. It fights for a near monopoly on future energy resources; in other words, for 'full spectrum dominance'.

William Engdahl has written an eye opening, fascinating but extremely dark book.

A must read.

A Century of War - oustanding analysis and great writing!
This is a must read book for anyone who is interested in learning the truth behind the headlines relating to many recent events. From the Falklands War to the current war in Iraq, this book analysis the economic factors that lead to - or in some way influenced - some of the major global events in modern history.

It explores in detail the relationships, theories and possible motives behind them without ever descending into crazy 'conspiracy' theories.

I've bought this book for a number of people and urge anyone who has an interest in the world around them to read it.

A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and
Get it. Read it. Then read it again. Don't take everything he writes as gospel, read around and google around...you'll need to anyway as he is so sparse on references.
If you believe that the UK and the US are altruists bringing peace, harmony and democracy to the world, simply from the goodness of their hearts (and bottomless pockets) then you may be in for a shock. If you want a crash course on money, banking, the military/industrial complex and an assessment of the New World Order aimed at adults rather than the juvenile audience of CNN and the BBC then this book is an excellent primer.