The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

Everybody who works in the Oil Market should read this book! It's a complete story about the development of this Market!

Truly worth the pulitizer prize, a great read, a great view of history..but..don't buy the paperback. This book literally fell out of it's binding before I got through the first one hundred pages. By the time I got to the epilogue I had little more than a pile of loose pages. I don't own the hard cover, but I can tell you that the soft cover is a piece of junk. Too bad the binders didn't respect the greatness of the book.

One of the few books that I enthusiastically have recommended. Great historical information for history buffs. Great economic information and how it effects us even today. It will truely help you understand the dynamics of war, politics, oil.

This book was written when energy, not terrorism, was the most pressing domestic problem. Oil is so essential to the survival of our economy. "The Prize" traces the history of oil from its humble, entrepreneurial beginnings in the hillsides of western Pennsylvania, to the shrewd domination of the industry by John D. Rockefeller, to the breakup of Standard Oil, and through the discovery of oil in the farthest flung corners of the globe.

Mr. Yergin undoubtedly deserved the Pulitzer Prize for this masterpiece on the history of oil industry. He succeeded in covering about a century and a half of discoveries and developments providing accurate information on historical events, national and international politics and key players, achieving to write a reference book on the subject.
Certainly no author whomsoever can be impartial - and throughout the reading one may well notice that Mr. Yergin is writing from a North-American standpoint. However, partiality is subtile and does not jeopardise his work's strict conformity to facts. Actually, it is only now and then - as in the case of Mossadegh and Nasser - that one might notice that the author could have stepped forward into a less contained critique of Washington's inertia and refrained from a more stark appraisal of Western European role.
Nonetheless, Mr. Yergin is probably the best historian of the subject, faithful to facts, besides being able to imprint a light and entertaining style into his narrative.