British Petroleum and Global Oil 1950-1975


Book Description

A detailed account of the activities of BP, 1950-75.







Handbook of OPEC and the Global Energy Order


Book Description

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2020, is one of the most recognizable acronyms in international politics. The organization has undergone decades of changing importance, from political irrelevance to the spotlight of world attention and back; and from economic boom for its members to deep political and financial crisis. This handbook, with chapters provided by scholars and analysts from different backgrounds and specializations, discusses and analyzes the history and development of OPEC, its global importance, and the role it has played, and still plays, in the global energy market. Part I focuses on the relationship between OPEC and its member states. Part II examines the relationship between OPEC and its customers, the consuming countries and their governments, while Part III addresses the relationship between OPEC and its competitors and potential partners, the non-OPEC producers, and the international oil companies. The final section, Part IV, looks at OPEC and the governance of international energy. Chapter 20 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.




Oil for Britain


Book Description

The period from 1957 to 1988 was transformative for the international oil industry. The United Kingdon, home to two major oil companies, British Petroleum (BP) and Shell, as well as the possessor of large quantities of oil and gas in its territorial waters, was at the heart of this transition. While famous for its liberal policy toward oil and gas production, both before and after the discovery of North Sea oil and gas, this period actually saw the United Kingdom respond to shifts in power from the major oil companies to the oil-producing states, many of them in Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC), by building up its competency regarding oil matters. This took the form of efforts to influence the activities of BP and Shell abroad as well as in creation of a state-run oil company, the British National Oil Corporation, in an attempt to exercise greater state control over oil and gas production and distribution. The failure of these efforts was driven in part by internal divisions within Whitehall, the efforts of the oil companies themselves, and ultimately the political will of the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher to get the state out of the business of oil and gas.




Oil Shock


Book Description

The 1973 'Oil Shock' is considered a turning point in the history of the twentieth century. At the time it seemed to mark a definitive shift from the era of low priced oil to the era of expensive oil. For most Western industrialized countries, it became the symbolic marker of the end of an era. For many oil producers, it translated into an unprecedented control over their energy resources, and completed the process of decolonization, leading to a profound redefinition of international relations.This book provides an analysis of the crisis and its global political and economic impact. It features contributions from a range of perspectives and approaches, including political, economic, environmental, international and social history. The authors examine the origins of what was defined as an 'oil revolution' by the oil-producing countries, as well as the far-reaching effects of the 'shock' on the Cold War and decolonization, on international energy markets and the global economy. In doing so, they help place the event in its historical context as a key moment in the transformation of the international economy and of North-South relations.




Oil Crises of the 1970s and the Transformation of International Order


Book Description

The 1970s are widely seen as a turning point for the world economy and a transformative decade for the international order. This volume explores the role played by the oil crises in this transformation, focusing particularly on their impact in previously little-studied regions such as Asia and Africa. Examining the intersection between the oil crises and the Third World project, their impact on Asian economic development and the contrasting responses of two African countries, this collection covers new ground on the global and regional effects of the crises, and ties them into the key transformations of the international economy and the Cold War order. Arguing that they were instrumental in reshaping the Asian economies, helping to instigate the boom known as the 'East Asian Miracle', it also demonstrates how the individual responses of countries reflected their own specific circumstances. With chapters from leading scholars such as David Painter and Dane Kennedy, this book shows how the origins, course and consequences of the oil crises of the 1970s are crucial to understanding the transformation of the international order in the late twentieth century.




Britain and the Arab Gulf after Empire


Book Description

Although Britain’s formal imperial role in the smaller, oil-rich sheikdoms of the Arab Gulf – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – ended in 1971, Britain continued to have a strong interest and continuing presence in the region. This book explores the nature of Britain’s role after the formal end of empire. It traces the historical events of the post-imperial years, including the 1973 oil shock, the fall of the Shah in Iran and the beginnings of the Iran-Iraq War, considers the changing positions towards the region of other major world powers, including the United States, and engages with debates on the nature of empire and the end of empire. The book is a sequel to the authors’ highly acclaimed previous books Britain's Revival and Fall in the Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, 1950-71 (Routledge 2004) and Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and Post-war Decolonization, 1945-1973 (Routledge 2012).




Energy Humanities


Book Description

"Energy humanities is a field of scholarship that, like medical humanities and digital humanities before it, overcomes traditional boundaries between the disciplines and between academic and applied research. Like its predecessors, energy humanities highlights the essential contribution that the insights and methods of the human sciences can make to areas of study and analysis once thought best left to the natural sciences. This isn't a case of the humanities simply helping their cross-campus colleagues to learn the mechanics of communication so that they might better articulate their ideas. Rather, these fields of scholarship are ones that demonstrate how the scale and complexity of the issues being explored demand insights and approaches that transcend old school disciplinary boundaries. Energy Humanities : A Reader offers a carefully curated selection of the best and most influential work in energy humanities that has appeared over the past decade. To stay true to the diverse work that makes up this emergent field, selections range from anthropology and geography to philosophy, history, and cultural studies to recent energy-focused interventions in art and literature. The three readers all agree that this is an important, ground-breaking collection of work"--Provided by publisher.




Iridescent Kuwait


Book Description

Die Erdöl-Moderne ist ein lokales Phänomen der Geschichte Kuwaits, aber auch ein globales Ereignis und massgebliche Ursache des Klimawandels. Die Studie untersucht die Rolle von Erdöl in der visuellen Kultur Kuwaits im Kontext von Ideologien wie Modernisierung und politischer Repräsentation. Der Begriff des Irisierenden, eines in Regenbogenfarben schillernden Farbenspiels, dient als analytisch-ästhetisches Konzept, um den umstrittenen Beitrag von Erdöl in der Moderne zu diskutieren: sowohl Wohlstandsversprechen wie auch destruktive Kraft in soziokultureller und ökologischer Hinsicht. Das Buch versammelt eine Fülle historischen Bildmaterials, darunter Luft- und Farbfotografien, Briefmarken, Stadtpläne und Architekturdarstellungen, um unter Berücksichtigung von zeitgenössischer Kunst aus der Golfregion das visuelle Erbe der Erdöl- Moderne kritisch zu hinterfragen.




The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Volume 1, Origins


Book Description

This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War. In the first comprehensive reexamination of the period, a team of leading scholars shows how the conflict evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic and sociopolitical environments of the two world wars and interwar period, and discusses how markets, ideas and cultural interactions affected political discourse, diplomacy and strategy after World War II. The chapters focus not only on the United States and the Soviet Union, but also on critical regions such as Europe, the Balkans and East Asia. The authors consider the most influential statesmen of the era and address issues that mattered to people around the globe: food, nutrition and resource allocation; ethnicity, race and religion; science and technology; national autonomy, self-determination and sovereignty. In so doing, they illuminate how people worldwide shaped the evolution of the increasingly bipolar conflict and, in turn, were ensnared by it.