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

This comprehensive history of British Petroleum has been based firmly on the evidence from contemporary records.

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.

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.

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.

How can humanities scholars help us respond to growing concerns about climate change and fossil fuels? Energy humanities is a field of scholarship that, like medical and digital humanities before it, aims to overcome traditional boundaries between the disciplines and between academic and applied research. Responding to growing public concern about anthropogenic climate change and the unsustainability of the fuels we use to power our modern society, energy humanists highlight the essential contribution that humanistic insights and methods can make to areas of analysis once thought best left to the natural sciences. In this groundbreaking anthology, Imre Szeman and Dominic Boyer have brought together a carefully curated selection of the best and most influential work in energy humanities. Arguing that today’s energy and environmental dilemmas are fundamentally problems of ethics, habits, imagination, values, institutions, belief, and power—all traditional areas of expertise of the humanities and humanistic social sciences—the essays and other pieces featured here demonstrate the scale and complexity of the issues the world faces. Their authors offer compelling possibilities for finding our way beyond our current energy dependencies toward a sustainable future. Contributors include: Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Lesley Battler, Ursula Biemann, Dominic Boyer, Italo Calvino, Warren Cariou, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Una Chaudhuri, Claire Colebrook, Stephen Collis, Erik M. Conway, Amy De’Ath, Adam Dickinson, Fritz Ertl, Pope Francis, Amitav Ghosh, Gökçe Günel, Gabrielle Hecht, Cymene Howe, Dale Jamieson, Julia Kasdorf, Oliver Kellhammer, Stephanie LeMenager, Barry Lord, Graeme Macdonald, Joseph Masco, John McGrath, Martin McQuillan, Timothy Mitchell, Timothy Morton, Jean-François Mouhot, Abdul Rahman Munif, Judy Natal, Reza Negarestani, Pablo Neruda, David Nye, Naomi Oreskes, Andrew Pendakis, Karen Pinkus, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Hermann Scheer, Roy Scranton, Allan Stoekl, Imre Szeman, Laura Watts, Michael Watts, Jennifer Wenzel, Sheena Wilson, Patricia Yaeger, and Marina Zurkow

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).