This book explains the place of oil in the economic and political predicaments that now confront the West. Thompson explains the problems that the rising cost of oil posed in the years leading up to the 2008 crash, and the difficulties that a volatile oil market now poses to economic recovery under the conditions of high debt, low growth and quantitative easing. The author argues that the 'Gordian knot' created by the economic and political dynamics of supply and demand oil in the present international economy poses a fundamental challenge to the assumption of economic progress embedded in Western democratic expectations.

"This book is about the world's endowment of oil. It is a very important subject, considering that cheap oil-based energy has been the lifeblood of the world's economy over the best part of this century." -- P. 5.

"Colin Campbell is renowned for his lucid earlier work, 'The coming oil crisis'. Eight years on, events have proved his analysis right. Now, he argues that the oil crisis has come. The familiar technical explanation of the crisis is carefully made again : essentially, that there is no more oil to be found. That fact is beginning to manifest itself in heightened competition for the remaining resource ; which is why America invaded Iraq ; why Central Asia is in turmoil ; why oil is persistently priced above $50/barrel (and why Goldman Sachs think $100 a barrel is not too unlikely in the near future). The problem - of an oil-less world - is beyond the grasp of politicians. They can fiddle with ideas about renewables or hydrogen but they, along with most of humanity, have not really grasped that it is the oil economy that enables about a 7 billion world population to be sustained. A wholly new world is imminent. It is not likely to be very pleasant. Dr Campbell outlines our grim future." -- book cover.

Essay from the year 2004 in the subject Business economics - Economic and Social History, grade: 2,0, Turku School of Economics (Department of economics), course: Economic History and Development, language: English, abstract: Nowadays oil is still the world’s most important single source of energy. The world’s industry is influenced by the cost of energy which, in turn, is influenced by the price of crude oil, taxation and other factors. If the cost of energy goes up, then prices of goods and services will increase, subsequently it will cause lower availability of products, higher transportation’s costs and in turn lower economic growth. The latter will influence negatively the efficiency and productivity of the whole world’s industry. This means that if oil prices go too high or too low there will be unlikely consequences for both oil producers and oil consumers. This paper analyzes the oil crisis of 1970ies. The first section concerns the history of the October War (6 – 23 October 1973) that led to the oil embargo, one of the most dramatic events for the world economy. The embargo lasted six months, beginning on 17 October 1973 and ending on 18 March 1974. The second section deals with the impact of the energy crisis on different countries. It caused terrible consequences for the economies of all industrialized countries such as recession, inflation, unemployment, lost economic growth and stagflation. But the essential question is whether the energy crisis was a real shortage or mainly a matter of politics.