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 (I will not usually outline historical readings.  Treat what follows as a guide for you to make your own outline of significant events and processes.) Historical background to contemporary competition for petroleum resources -- Yergin's masterful book!

    A. 19th century industrialization needed fuel for illumination and lubricants for machinery.  "Colonel" Edwin L. Drake drills near Titusville, PA, USA.  Boom town of Pithole.  Speculation.  Low economic barriers to entry for drilling competitors.  Overproduction.  Inadequate transportation to get oil to refineries.  Bust. 

    B. Better financed capitalists (generally involved with capital-intensive refineries or railroads) sought to bring "order" to the cycles of boom and bust.  John D. Rockefeller was the most successful.  "Our plan." 

The basic tactic of Rockefeller was to use his large scale of operation to lower his cost of production (often by bribing railroads), then engage in price competition to undercut competitors, forcing them to sell out to him or to go bankrupt.  Once he acquired control of competitors he would again raise prices.  (This tactic is reproduced again and again on an international as well as national scale: a company lowers prices to gain market share.  Once it dominates new markets, it raises prices.  When a company cannot somehow undercut competitors' prices, it may seek to form a cartel with them, pattern often witnessed in petroleum history -- though it has rarely been successful for long.  Rockefeller tried both strategies.) 

A newly legal form of holding company (company which undertook no operations of its own except to coordinate the operations of other companies) called the 'trust' becomes the mechanism for coordinating production, refining, distribution and (to a limited extent at first) retail marketing on a large scale.  The new scale of ownership and control, and the immense economic and political power wielded by regional monopolies, was strongly opposed by 'public opinion,' especially by the working classes and independent proprietors.  Attitudes to the Standard Oil (and other) Trust became a litmus test in American politics.  [Twentieth century Marxists had a particularly apt expression for this phenomenon, which was far more advaned in Germany, for instance, than in the U.S.  They referred to it as the fusion of industrial capital (operating companies) with bank capital (finance).  Lenin Austrian Marxist philosopher Rudolf Hilferding called it 'finance capital.'  Lenin borrowed (without attribution!) his ideas:  Lenin and his non-Bolshevik Marxist rivals identified the fusion as a disctintive feature of the most advanced, but terminal, stage of development of capiatlism.]

    C. Exporting petroleum products from the US was initially difficult (and dangerous).  European consumers looked for alternate sources of supply.  Oil was discovered in Caspian Sea peninsula of Baku.  In other words, in the 'back of beyond'   Map. Today, this is the capital of Azerbaijan, still prominent in petroleum production.  Outdated pipeline map.  Ludwig Nobel (dynamite), "Oil King of Baku," faced competition from the international Rothschild  family of financiers.  What could US Standard Oil do to maintain its (near) monopoly?  More complexity: enter Marcus Samuel and the innovation of ocean-going oil tankers.

    D. In 1892-93 Nobels, Rothschilds, and Standard Oil came close to negotiating a global holding company to create a global monopoly.  But: opposition of the Russian government; discovery of additional deposits in the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia).  Emergence of Royal Dutch as a serious global competitor.

    E. With invention of electric lighting and rapid diffusion of the automobile, demand for petroleum skyrocketed.  More discoveries in the US: California, Texas, Oklahoma.  Again, 'order' is eventually imposed by financiers.  Emergence of Gulf Oil, Union Oil (Unocal), Texaco. 

    F. In the political realm, public opinion -- largely crystallized by Ida Tarbell's writings -- supports progressivism.  Congress passes the Sherman AntiTrust Act (1890) which declares trusts to be illegal.  Finally, in 1911 under legal pressure, Standard Oil divides itself into several independent companies. 

    G.  But in the rest of the world, concentration continues as the antidote to ruinous price-cutting competition.  Shell and Royal Dutch combine with Dutchman Henri Deterding gaining control.

    H.  The Russian Revolution begins among the workers in the oilfields of Baku and Batum.  A failed but disruptive revolution in 1905. 

    I.   Yet more discoveries in Persia (today's Iran) in the "back of the back of beyond."  Again the problem is, How to get the oil out?  Emergence of Anglo-Persian as a major player.

    J.   Background: the rapid rise of Germany (after unification in 1870) as an economic and (therefore) potential military rival to Britain.  In an attempt to extend dominance at sea, the British Navy decides to replace coal as a fuel with oil ... even though Britain's home islands are lousy with coal but lack any petroleum.  This meant that the Government of Britain had to acquire secure sources of fuel for its navy.  Churchill both prompts and rides the wave.  Anglo-Persian can be relied upon for supply, but its operations in Iran are not secure.  How about Royal Dutch?  Can one trust the security of his country to commercial cooperation with a foreign owned entity?

    K.  WW1.  Mechanized -- that is, petroleum-fueled -- warfare on a huge scale.