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.
Introduction by Elisabetta Bini, Giuliano Garavini and Federico Romero PART 1: ORIGINS 1. The Shocking History of Oil by Bernard Mommer 2. 'First Class Brouhaha': Henry Kissinger and Oil Power in the 1970s by Christopher R. W. Dietrich 3. Iraq and the Oil Cold War: A superpower struggle and the end of Iraq Petroleum Company, 1958-1972 by Philippe Tristani 4. Eight Squeezed Sisters: The Oil Majors and the Coming of the 1973 Oil Crisis by Francesco Petrini PART 2: CONSEQUENCES5. Shifting Sands: The 1973 Oil Shock and the Expansion of Non-OPEC Supply by Tyler Priest 6. The OECD Oil Committee and the international search for reinforced energy consumer cooperation, 1972-1973 by Marloes Beers 7. Learning to 'Recycle': Petrodollars and the West, 1973-75 by William Glenn Gray 8. Energy Hinge? Oil Shock and Greening American Consumer Culture since the 1970s by Brian Black 9. Energy and Soviet Economic Integration: Foundations of a Future Petrostate by Oscar Sanchez-Sibony 10. Nuclear Energy and the Rise of Environmentalism in the United States by Martin V. Melosi
Elisabetta Bini is Research Fellow at the University of Trieste. She is the author of La potente benzina italiana: Guerra fredda e consumi di massa tra Italia, Stati Uniti e Terzo mondo (1945-1973) and the editor of Working for Oil: Comparative Social Histories of Labor in Petroleum (with Touraj Atabaki and Kaveh Ehsani). Giuliano Garavini is FIRB Research Fellow at the University of Padua and Senior Research Fellow at New York University Abu Dhabi. He is the author of After Empires: European Integration, Decolonization and the Challenge from the Global South, 1957-1986.Federico Romero is Professor of History of Post-War European Cooperation and Integration at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence.
