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Summary: Politics, history and economics of the oil industry, refined
Review: The engines of the modern world run on hydrocarbons, and especially on oil & gas. and The Prize is an excellent, accessible history of the oil & gas industry, the impact it has had on world history and politics, and the corresponding impact of world events back on the industry itself. Oil fields are a wasting asset -- once found, they require capital for development, and once developed they become depleted. Yergin shows that the industry's story is largely a matter of finding balance -- (1) the balance between the ongoing need to find new sources, the depletion of those sources, and the need to find and hold market share, and (2) the balance between the countries that own resources, the companies that develop those resources and the consumers of oil and gas. Although this is not a very recent book, it explains the principlpes that underlie the dynamics of the oil industry. The reader comes away with an understanding of both yesterday's and today's oil-related geopolitics and economics. Explaining that complex linkage is quite an accomplishment, and explaining it so well and in so readable a manner justifies the high praise this book has won for nearly a generation. Yergin does a very good job of explaining the pre-World Way I and II strategic issues revolving around the availablity and security of oil supplies, and oil-related postwar political issues. It's a particularly interesting book in light of the recent declassification of British documents from 1973 indicating that the US was considering seizure of mideast oilfields during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. If you want to understand the history and economics of a powerful industry and its impact on global economics and geopolitics, read The Prize.
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Summary: Completely changed my understanding of recent history
Review: I am on my second pass at this book. I read it about five years ago, but due to recent world events and oil shocks, I decided to read it again. Even the second time around, I found this book to be so thorough and facinating that I felt compelled to keep reading long after my eyes tired. This account completely modified my understanding of world history for the past 150 years. Oil today is central to the world economy, but yet it seems we are remaking many of the mistakes of the past. The middle east has been and continues to be a remarkable but challenging place to deal with. Not a day goes by that I don't see some important news story regarding oil or the middle east. Reading this book has helped me to more clearly understand why many of these important world events are happening. Oil has had more economic impact on world events than any other invention or commodity, so I feel it is important for people to understand how it has shaped our world. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the most important commodity "King Oil".
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Summary: Fascinating, masterful, inspiring...
Review: I decided to pick up this book because I wanted to know how influential oil was as a factor in international politics. In the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, many protestors held signs saying "No blood for Oil." Was the war all about oil?? I decided to find out. I was told by many that this was a definitive account of the role of oil in world politics and a good place to start... Not only was it a great history lesson, it was an absolute page turner!! You wouldn't think a history of the oil industry could be gripping, but his depiction of the characters, world leaders and crucial decisions of the 20th century was compulsive reading. Clearly, as Yergin points out, oil is a VERY strong, motivating factor behind many geo-political issues... Absolutely brilliant. I feel that I am a more enlightened person for having read this book. It should be required reading for all students of history...
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Summary: Why oil continues to haunt us all
Review: This book was a monster! It took me several weeks to finish it. I read it during a flight to DC and several people commented to me on the plane and in the airports that it was a great book. This story is really a story of the twentieth century. It is the story of the rise of the Oil industry. What a mess! What a collection of crooks, crony capitalists, get-rich schemers, and arrogant imperialists! I loved it! Not that I want to be like any of these guys. But it was really engrossing to read. The author really brought the characters alive, and I think he didn't really damn them or worship them. He just told us what happened in a lively and very detailed way. The most interesting part for me was the way Oil was at the heart of most of the geo-political issues in all of modern history. I always knew that oil was part of the equation in historical issues, but to have the whole story revolve around it gave new appreciation for its impact on world societies. The treatments of the World Wars were my favorite parts. But the whole book just gave me a new prospective.
Rating:
Summary: Well-written, informative, and entertaining.
Review: "The Prize" is considered to be the "black bible" of the oil industry and not without reason. Yergin has written an outstanding book, so well researched that just the notes and bibliography together are almost 100 pages!! This book is highly deserving of the Pulitzer price. Reading this book will be like an intensive course / refresher of your history knowledge of the last two centuries. The author starts back in the 19th century. The big day, 27 August 1859, the day "The Colonel" Edwin L. Drake found oil in Titusville, Texas - till just after the Golf War in 1991. A book covering the last two centuries, gives us quite naturally, a large dose of world history. And many pages are dedicated to men that made a huge impact, and was an important part of this history - Nobel, Teagle, Rockefeller, "The Colonel" (Drake), Gulbenkian, and Churchill just to mention a few. Further, the author gives us an insight to the politics in the oil industry, governmental interference and how the politics in the industry works (or don't...). In lay man terms Yergin explains why and how vulnerable the industry is, about the more resent but also the past oil-crisis, how little it takes for the oil-price to spin out of control, and how the economies around the world more and more depend on the black gold. Unfortunately, with its +800 pages this is not a book you accidentally pick just to have something to read. I am sure that the length of this book keeps lay readers away from it and that is a shame. It can be quite daunting project to start on, but once you have started, you will not put it away until you have finished it. I must admit that I was a little sceptical to what level the language would be on, but fear not, the book is kept on an accessible level, even for the lay reader. To the author's credit, he strikes the perfect balance between facts, technical jargon, and anecdotes, which makes "The Prize" a long, time-consuming, but nevertheless fascinating and entertaining read. I found "The Prize" to be a great overview over the industry. I picked up lots and lots of new facts from this book, and I am certain that I will cite this book in the future. On a personal note, I wish the author would update the book with more than a new preface. A few more chapters to include the last decade as well would be highly welcome. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to fill in on the knowledge of the oil industry.
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Summary: Big oil, or great americans?
Review: I am glad for a book of this stature. In light of todays criticm of Big Oil and its role in the Iraq conflict this book explodes the myths sourounding the american oil empire. This book shows how a small group of dedicated HARD WORKING individuals worked to make the American oil induistry the best in the world. THis book is so broad in scope that it touches on every spect of the industry, including the Russian Oil Fields of Baku, the importance of oil in the world wars, the North sea oil fields, Mexican oil(PEMEX), and Venezualia, along with the politics sourounding the "oil weapon". A superb account that should be read by everyone, except that its extraordinary length preclude the ability of the average reader to do so.
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Summary: The Universal Solvent
Review: As works of popular economic history go, this, the story of oil, and its doppelganger, petroleum, ranks alongside Bernstein's "The Power of Gold" and McCulloch's "Path Between the Seas." With a real sense of the theatrical, Yergin assembles a cast of heroes, villains, dupes, dreamers and eccentrics, all of whom stake their future on the Great Hydrocarbon Economy. Among our players are Marcus Samuel, founder of Shell Trading (named for his father, who WAS a shell trader), John D. Rockefeller, king of Standard Oil Trust, John Paul Getty, the rogue who became a billionaire on the strength of a single Kuwaiti field, Winston Churchill (who, as young Navy minister, insisted Britain have its own national carrier - British Petroleum), Calouiste Gulbenkian, negotiator and international man of mystery ("Mr. 5%") and Sheikh Yamani, Saudi oil minister from 1962 to 1986 - and mastermind of OPEC. Yergin zooms through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in all their craziness, from hot war to cold war to shooting war again, from capitalism to communism (and back again), from glut to squeeze (and glut again). Now the standard popular work on the oil industry, it is a tour de force.
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Summary: Sanitized History
Review: Interesting book full of extensive research, but as a few other semi-negative reviewers have said what's NOT in the book would be a more useful history of Big Oil. Author has a tendency to go out off on a tangent (or seemingly irrelevant detail), but at least these passages provide dozens of new info for the reader. More serious is the author's apparent hesitancy to dish the dirt on Big Oil, eg. Standard Oil's providing bulk tetraethyl-lead and associated processes to I.G. Farben in the late 30's. Given the detail the author enjoys providing, this omission was intentional, and leaves the reader open to disappointment at what else was elided from the record.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating but unbalanced
Review: The best thing I can say about "Prize" (other than the fact that I found it a fascinating read) is how it gave me a thorough sense of the complexities of matters I thought were simple and straightforward in the past. I never knew of the serious macroeconomic, negative ramifications to having cheap gasoline at the pump. The relationship between government policymakers and oil companies is not as simple as I had always assumed. I was very surprised to learn of the historical discord that has existed among OPEC member nations. There are many other examples of how my perspective has been broadened by reading this book. My one serious gripe about this book echoes a view expressed by another reviewer, namely that Yergin seems to say little that is negative about the oil industry. I wanted to read more about how oil companies have related to the search for alternative fuels, specifically whether they have actively thwarted such efforts or not. Nothing at all is mentioned about this. The same can be similarly said about the wholly lacking coverage of how the industry relates to environmental concerns. More generally, in an industry so powerful and so awash in money and influence, it simply doesn't make sense that there aren't any patterns of abuse to recount. I've read elsewhere that Yergin is or has been a consultant to the oil industry, and it shows. Four stars for being a fascinating and educational book. Had it made even a token attempt to take a bit more of a balanced approach, it would have earned five.
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Summary: The Prize: The Best.
Review: "The Prize" is, quite simply, the best book I've ever read. Its scope is daunting-- almost 800 pages-- and it took me months to get enough time to complete it. But every time I had to put it down, I couldn't wait to get back to it. Yergin's style is masterful: a complex historical epic is told as a series of succinct anecdotes, filled with colorful characters who are deftly drawn and dramatic episodes that are vivid and alive. Along the way, "The Prize" provides an amazing education on the development of modern industry, the creation of the global economy, and just about every important historical event of the past 150 years. This is a compelling book: read it and you will have a far greater understanding of world events, both past and present.
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