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Oilcraft

Oilcraft PDF Author: Robert Vitalis
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503612341
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Book Description
“A valuable addition to the new wave of critical studies on the history of oil and energy policy”—and a bracing corrective to longstanding myths (James M. Gustafson, Diplomatic History). Conventional wisdom tells us that the US military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees American access to oil; that the “special” relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary to stabilize an otherwise volatile market; and that these assumptions in turn provide Washington enormous leverage over Europe and Asia. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Robert Vitalis debunks the myths of “oilcraft”, a line of magical thinking closer to witchcraft than statecraft. Oil is a commodity like any other: bought, sold, and subject to market forces. Vitalis exposes the suspect fears of oil scarcity and investigates the geopolitical impact of these false beliefs. In particular, Vitalis shows how we can reconsider the question of the US-Saudi special relationship, which confuses and traps many into unnecessarily accepting what they imagine is a devil’s bargain. Freeing ourselves from the spell of oilcraft won’t be easy, but the benefits make it essential.

Oilcraft

Oilcraft PDF Author: Robert Vitalis
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503612341
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Book Description
“A valuable addition to the new wave of critical studies on the history of oil and energy policy”—and a bracing corrective to longstanding myths (James M. Gustafson, Diplomatic History). Conventional wisdom tells us that the US military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees American access to oil; that the “special” relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary to stabilize an otherwise volatile market; and that these assumptions in turn provide Washington enormous leverage over Europe and Asia. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Robert Vitalis debunks the myths of “oilcraft”, a line of magical thinking closer to witchcraft than statecraft. Oil is a commodity like any other: bought, sold, and subject to market forces. Vitalis exposes the suspect fears of oil scarcity and investigates the geopolitical impact of these false beliefs. In particular, Vitalis shows how we can reconsider the question of the US-Saudi special relationship, which confuses and traps many into unnecessarily accepting what they imagine is a devil’s bargain. Freeing ourselves from the spell of oilcraft won’t be easy, but the benefits make it essential.

Oil Revolution

Oil Revolution PDF Author: Christopher R. W. Dietrich
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 131673952X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

Book Description
Through innovative and expansive research, Oil Revolution analyzes the tensions faced and networks created by anti-colonial oil elites during the age of decolonization following World War II. This new community of elites stretched across Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria, and Libya. First through their western educations and then in the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, these elites transformed the global oil industry. Their transnational work began in the early 1950s and culminated in the 1973–4 energy crisis and in the 1974 declaration of a New International Economic Order in the United Nations. Christopher R. W. Dietrich examines how these elites brokered and balanced their ambitions via access to oil, the most important natural resource of the modern era.

Oil Powers - a History of the U. S. -Saudi Alliance

Oil Powers - a History of the U. S. -Saudi Alliance PDF Author: Victor Mcfarland
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231197274
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Victor McFarland challenges the view that the U.S.-Saudi alliance is the inevitable consequence of American energy demand and Saudi Arabia's huge oil reserves. Oil Powers traces the growth of the alliance through a dense web of political, economic, and social connections that bolstered royal and executive power and the national-security state.

Market Madness

Market Madness PDF Author: Blake C. Clayton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199990050
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
"In Market Madness, Dr. Blake Clayton, a Wall Street stock analyst and former Oxford researcher, draws on a century's worth of statistical data to offer a revolutionary new look the history of oil and future of energy. The culmination of a multi-year study, he shows how generational fears about an imminent, irreversible shortage of oil punctuate the history of oil since its earliest days. He explores the conditions in which oil supply fears arise, gain popularity, and eventually wane, and shows how important such stories can be in affecting financial markets. He links these episodes to the behavioral concept of irrational exuberance and new era economic thinking, first popularized by Nobel Laureate Yale economist Robert Shiller, to show how unfounded pessimism affects the market for oil and other exhaustible resources. Acknowledging the significant geological and structural changes the oil market has undergone over the last century, the book does not dismiss today's shortage fears out of hand, but asks what they reveal about how commodity markets function and what that means for investors and public officials. Clayton argues that the lessons to be learned from this history are the need for quality data about US and global oil reserves, the importance of clear communication from public officials about energy markets and resources, and the value of transparency in commodities markets. While these measures will not eliminate volatility and unpredictability in energy markets, he writes, they would mitigateunnecessary price spikes and improve investor and government decision-making. The book addresses popular debates in economics and finance on how mass beliefs affect financial markets while also offering a colorful narrative history for general readers about the dramatic booms and busts of the American oil industry"--

The Rise of the Arabic Book

The Rise of the Arabic Book PDF Author: Beatrice Gruendler
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674250265
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
The little-known story of the sophisticated and vibrant Arabic book culture that flourished during the Middle Ages. During the thirteenth century, Europe’s largest library owned fewer than 2,000 volumes. Libraries in the Arab world at the time had exponentially larger collections. Five libraries in Baghdad alone held between 200,000 and 1,000,000 books each, including multiple copies of standard works so that their many patrons could enjoy simultaneous access. How did the Arabic codex become so popular during the Middle Ages, even as the well-established form languished in Europe? Beatrice Gruendler’s The Rise of the Arabic Book answers this question through in-depth stories of bookmakers and book collectors, stationers and librarians, scholars and poets of the ninth century. The history of the book has been written with an outsize focus on Europe. The role books played in shaping the great literary cultures of the world beyond the West has been less known—until now. An internationally renowned expert in classical Arabic literature, Gruendler corrects this oversight and takes us into the rich literary milieu of early Arabic letters.

Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s

Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s PDF Author: Michael Franczak
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501763938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
In Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s, Michael Franczak demonstrates how Third World solidarity around the New International Economic Order (NIEO) forced US presidents from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to consolidate American hegemony over an international economic order under attack abroad and lacking support at home. The goal of the nations that supported NIEO was to negotiate a redistribution of money and power from the global North to the global South. Their weapon was control over the major commodities—in particular oil—that undergirded the prosperity of the United States and Europe after World War II. Using newly available archival sources, as well as interviews with key administration officials, Franczak reveals how the NIEO and "North-South dialogue" negotiations brought global inequality to the forefront of US national security. The challenges posed by NIEO became an inflection point for some of the greatest economic, political, and moral crises of 1970s America, including the end of golden age liberalism and the return of the market, the splintering of the Democratic Party and the building of the Reagan coalition, and the rise of human rights in US foreign policy in the wake of the Vietnam War. The policy debates and decisions toward the NIEO were pivotal moments in the histories of three ideological trends—neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and human rights—that formed the core of America's post–Cold War foreign policy.

Undesirable Immigrants

Undesirable Immigrants PDF Author: Andrew S. Rosenberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691238758
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
How the racist legacy of colonialism shapes global migration The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 officially ended the explicit prejudice in American immigration policy that began with the 1790 restriction on naturalization to free White persons of “good character.” By the 1980s, the rest of the Anglo-European world had followed suit, purging discriminatory language from their immigration laws and achieving what many believe to be a colorblind international system. Undesirable Immigrants challenges this notion, revealing how racial inequality persists in global migration despite the end of formally racist laws. In this eye-opening book, Andrew Rosenberg argues that while today’s leaders claim that their policies are objective and seek only to restrict obviously dangerous migrants, these policies are still correlated with race. He traces how colonialism and White supremacy catalyzed violence and sabotaged institutions around the world, and how this historical legacy has produced migrants that the former imperial powers and their allies now deem unfit to enter. Rosenberg shows how postcolonial states remain embedded in a Western culture that requires them to continuously perform their statehood, and how the closing and policing of international borders has become an important symbol of sovereignty, one that imposes harsher restrictions on non-White migrants. Drawing on a wealth of original quantitative evidence, Undesirable Immigrants demonstrates that we cannot address the challenges of international migration without coming to terms with the brutal history of colonialism.

Revolutionary Life

Revolutionary Life PDF Author: Asef Bayat
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674269470
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
From a leading scholar of the Middle East and North Africa comes a new way of thinking about the Arab Spring and the meaning of revolution. From the standpoint of revolutionary politics, the Arab Spring can seem like a wasted effort. In Tunisia, where the wave of protest began, as well as in Egypt and the Gulf, regime change never fully took hold. Yet if the Arab Spring failed to disrupt the structures of governments, the movement was transformative in farms, families, and factories, souks and schools. Seamlessly blending field research, on-the-ground interviews, and social theory, Asef Bayat shows how the practice of everyday life in Egypt and Tunisia was fundamentally altered by revolutionary activity. Women, young adults, the very poor, and members of the underground queer community can credit the Arab Spring with steps toward equality and freedom. There is also potential for further progress, as women’s rights in particular now occupy a firm place in public discourse, preventing retrenchment and ensuring that marginalized voices remain louder than in prerevolutionary days. In addition, the Arab Spring empowered workers: in Egypt alone, more than 700,000 farmers unionized during the years of protest. Labor activism brought about material improvements for a wide range of ordinary people and fostered new cultural and political norms that the forces of reaction cannot simply wish away. In Bayat’s telling, the Arab Spring emerges as a paradigmatic case of “refolution”—revolution that engenders reform rather than radical change. Both a detailed study and a moving appeal, Revolutionary Life identifies the social gains that were won through resistance.

The Oil Curse

The Oil Curse PDF Author: Michael L. Ross
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691159637
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
Explaining—and solving—the oil curse in the developing world Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth—and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the world; today, they are 50 percent more likely to be ruled by autocrats—and twice as likely to descend into civil war—than countries without oil. The Oil Curse shows why oil wealth typically creates less economic growth than it should; why it produces jobs for men but not women; and why it creates more problems in poor states than in rich ones. It also warns that the global thirst for petroleum is causing companies to drill in increasingly poor nations, which could further spread the oil curse. This landmark book explains why good geology often leads to bad governance, and how this can be changed.

America's Kingdom

America's Kingdom PDF Author: Robert Vitalis
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789604451
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 562

Book Description
Now newly updated, America's Kingdom debunks the many myths that now surround the United States's special relationship with Saudi Arabia, also known as "the deal": oil for security. Exploding the long-established myth that the Arabian American Oil Company, Aramco, made miracles happen in the desert, Robert Vitalis shows how oil led the US government to follow the company to the kingdom, and how oil and Aramco quickly became America's largest single overseas private enterprise. From the establishment in the 1930s of a Jim Crow system in the Dhahran oil camps, to the consolidation of America's Kingdom under the House of Fahd, the royal faction that still rules today, this is a meticulously researched account of Aramco as a microcosm of the colonial order.