Introduction by Author Steve LeVine
Oil, Future and Past
We have two books on one of the biggest topics today -- oil and energy. Wall Street Journal reporter Steve LeVine explores what he calls the last heyday of Big Oil in his The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. LeVine describes the last century and a half of oil -- the corruption, the struggle between great powers, and the quest for nationhood. In Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, Economist journalists Vijay Vaitheeswaran and Iain Carson examine what comes next as they pursue the hunt for non-carbon fuel and a car that can run on it. Visit Steve LeVine's site at OilandGlory.com to check out the discussion.
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The Oil and The Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea
Steve LeVine
 The collapse of the Soviet Union was a big opportunity for Big Oil, whose exploits are detailed in this fast-paced work of political and economic reportage by Wall Street Journal energy correspondent LeVine. Westerners had been sniffing for black gold in Russia and its satellites long before the empire disintegrated, notes the author. Averell Harriman, "the Harvard-trained scion of nineteenth-century robber baron Edward Harriman," tried his hand at the business before turning to manganese mining, while Armand Hammer "became a money launderer for the Bolsheviks, sneaked cash to secret Bolshevik agents in the United States, and profited handsomely as the representative in Russia of some thirty American companies." Hammer set the tone for the Americans who flocked to the Caspian in the first years of the Clinton presidency, which maneuvered for the construction of an east-west oil pipeline that, by reversing the old pattern of Central Asian materials going north to Russia and coming back as products for sale, "would favor the West and disfavor Russia.
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ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future
Vijay Vaitheeswaran and Iain Carson
A stirring call to arms urging Americans to demand that the government act now to meet the challenges of global warming and to tackle the country's addiction to oil. Carson, former industry editor of The Economist, and Vaitheeswaran, who for ten years reported on environmental and energy issues for that magazine, take to task the automakers of Detroit and Big Oil, dubbing them "dinosaurs" facing extinction unless they change their thinking soon. The authors' closeup look at the workings of the auto industry is sharp and pulls no punches. They credit Toyota with taking the lead in the race to develop the successor to the internal-combustion engine, calling the Prius a stepping stone to the car of the future. The chapters on oil trace the story of America's dependence on Mideast oil from FDR's pact with Ibn Saud of Saudia Arabia in World War II to the terror-threatened market of the present day, and they consider the serious problems now facing the Western oil giants, especially the restricted access to reserves as competition from national oil companies increases.
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