Book Review - "The Prize" by Daniel Yergin / reviewed by Fouad Kronfol

It has nothing to do with children, the UN or UNICEF!! Yet, it has EVERYTHING to do with all three subjects.

This "brique"of a book which I just completed reading is an excellent history of our world seen from the viewpoint of OIL. An exceptionally well researched and annotated tome of 780 plus pages in addition to more than 100 pages of bibliograpohy, references and notes, it describes our modern history from the early discovery of oil in eastern US in the 1800's until 1990.

Published in 1991, the author Daniel Yergin, meticulously describes how the discovery and exploitation of oil has affected all events of the world and how human species evolved from the use of wood and coal to oil and its derivatives to become what he calls the "Hydrocarbon Man".

In the process he narrates the rivalry between the small independents and the big "seven Sisters" companies which produced oil, the anarchy in US government as laws and regulations were issued on the subject, to global and regional wars and the role of oil, to the rise in importance of the Middle East as the prime producers and the political conflicts between the producing countries and the marketing companies,the creation of OPEC cartel, and many other angles to the use of oil and its derivatives by mankind.

It is a shame that the period covered ended in 1990 as it would have been interesting to read his views since the Green Environment movement andclimate change issues were just starting to gain attention at that point.

Fouad