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Holistic Guidance - The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
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List Price: $22.00
Our Price: $14.96
Your Save: $ 7.04 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Free Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.272820904
EAN: 9780671799328
ISBN: 0671799320
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 928
Publication Date: 1993-01-01
Publisher: Free Press
Studio: Free Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Pulitzer Prize Winner -- and Now an Epic PBS Series The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm. The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A must-read for everybody
Comment: The Prize is a feast of a book. It is one of my all time favorites, including novels, biographies and the lot. Daniel Yergin, the author, makes a very exciting plot of the history of the oil business, starting in Pennsylvania in 1859.
The best parts, both analytical and epical, is where he writes about the upstream part of the oil business, ie. exploring, finding and producing crude. The story takes us from Pennsylvania, to Texas, Indonesia, Russia, Venezuela, Mexico, Persia, Kuwait and Saudi-Arabia to Alaska.
Yergins main thesis is that oil became a strategic commodity around 1900. Nations and governments want control over crude, because they are unable to conduct wars without it. Therefore they are willing to go to war to secure oil supplies, and availability of oil determined to a certain extent the outcome of WWII.
The book is also a very good account on general world history between 1859 and 1991. Interesting and fun anecdotes flourish, but Yergin is still keeping the analytical banner high. Fantastic book!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Oil and the World
Comment: Daniel Yergin's well-researched and sourced book provides the oil-based context for much of what happened, happens, and will happen in politics and war. A must read for those who want to understand the world in which they live.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great book, still relevent even today
Comment: I learned a great deal from this book, from the rise of Standard Oil, it's dissolution, wildcatters, and the rise of the Middle East. I now have a better understanding of the economics of oil. The knowledge this book covers is still applicable today, including Saudi Arabia's continued role in attempting to regulate oil prices, and the risks/rewards of offshore oil drilling, and why too low price of oil is bad (too high is obvious, as we all know with the summer-2008 gasoline prices). It should be required reading for all politicians and also should be read by anyone who voices an opinion (left or right-wing) on energy-related topics.
Highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Definitive work on oil exploration and exploitation
Comment: This significant tome is Daniel Yergin's fascinating, 1992 Pulitzer prize-winning account of the personalities, politics, adventures and misadventures behind the evolution of the ruthless global oil business. This authoritative, intelligent and highly entertaining book reports on the past, present and future of the commodity that shapes the world power struggle. Yergin delves knowledgeably into fulcrum events. For example, shortly before World War I, Winston Churchill made the fateful decision to convert British navy's fuel from coal to Iranian oil. This decision set off the modern Western quest for Middle Eastern oil. The world is still feeling its wrenching impact, and Yergin shows how and why. getAbstract finds that this book provides an essential context for understanding today's international conflicts.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Commuter's Nightmare
Comment: Kind librarians should consider filing The Prize in the "Reference" section as a clear warning to readers. Yergin's book is a laboriously impressive volume of forgettable details by one of the oil industry's most gifted analysts. It is not a light bedtime or commuter train friend!
- The storyline lacks a cohesive theme
- There are no main characters (including the oil companies!) tying the narrative together
- Personalities appear and dissolve forever in rapid-fire succession, leaving little imprint on the storyline
- The chronology often spirals confusingly in time, digressing into analyses which exhibit all the charm of a workplace memo
Yergin has written an exhaustive business history using the wrong medium. I suggest chopping The Prize up into bite-sized pieces and posting it to a website. There, at least, the disjointed pages would bear no responsibility for drawing the reader forward.
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