Page 87 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1388 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

munitions and synthetic rubber.Access to ample supplies economy to a market economy while maintaining social
of oil was a significant source of allied strength, while welfare programs.
German and Japanese failure to gain access to oil was an The central role of oil in transportation and agricul-
important factor in their defeat. ture, and the absence of alternative energy sources that
Although the development of nuclear weapons and possess oil’s versatility, high energy density, and easy
later ballistic missiles fundamentally altered the nature transportability, mean that oil prices and competition
of warfare, oil-powered forces, and hence oil, remained for access to oil will continue to be important issues in
central to military power. Despite the development of world affairs.Whether or not social, economic, and po-
nuclear-powered warships (mainly aircraft carriers and litical patterns based on high levels of oil use are sus-
submarines), most of the world’s warships still rely on tainable on the basis of world oil reserves, environ-
oil, as do aircraft, armor, and transport. In addition, each mental scientists warn that they are not sustainable
new generation of weapons has required more oil than ecologically—that continuation of high levels of oil con-
its predecessors. sumption will have severe and possibly irreversible im-
pacts on the earth’s environment.
Oil and World Power
David S. Painter
While the demand for oil has been worldwide, the great
sources of supply have been few and separated, and often See also Energy; Natural Gas
in the Third World. Disputes over ownership, access, and
price have made oil a source of international conflict, Further Reading
particularly in the Middle East, which contains two-thirds Bromley, S. (1991). American hegemony and world oil:The industry, the
state system, and the world economy. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
of world oil reserves.
DeGolyer & McNaughton (1999). Twentieth century petroleum statistics
In the first half of the twentieth century, the United [Electronic Resource]. Dallas,TX: Author.
States, blessed with a thriving domestic oil industry and Heinberg, R. (2003). The party’s over: Oil, war, and the fate of industrial
societies. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers.
firmly entrenched in the oil-rich region of the Gulf of McNeill, J. R. (2000). Something new under the sun: An environmental
Mexico and the Caribbean, controlled more than enough history of the twentieth century world. New York: W. W. Norton &
Company.
oil to meet its own needs and to fuel the allied war effort
Painter, D. S. (1986). Oil and the American century:The political economy
in both world wars. Following World War II, the United of U.S. foreign oil policy, 1941–1954. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
States made maintaining Western access to the oil riches University Press.
Painter,D.S.(2002).Oil.InA.DeConde,R.D.Burns,&F.Logevall(Eds.),
of the Middle East a key element in its foreign policy. Encyclopedia of American foreign policy (Vol. 3, pp. 1–20). New York:
Control of oil, in turn, helped the United States fuel eco- Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Philip, G. (1994). The political economy of international oil. Edinburgh,
nomic recovery in Western Europe and Japan and sustain
UK: Edinburgh University Press.
the cohesion of the Western alliance. Smil,V. (2003). Energy at the crossroads: Global perspectives and uncer-
The Soviet Union, in contrast, was unable to convert tainties. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Venn, F. (2002). The oil crisis. London: Longman.
its control of extensive domestic oil supplies into polit- Yergin, D. (1991). The prize: The epic quest for oil, money, and power.
ical influence outside of Eastern Europe. In addition, New York: Simon & Schuster.
despite geographical proximity, extensive efforts, and
widespread anti-Western sentiment in Iran and the
Arab world, the Soviets were unable to dislodge the Oral History
United States from the Middle East. The Soviets bene-
fited briefly from higher oil prices in the 1970s, but the ral history is a field of study concerned with obtain-
collapse of world oil prices in the mid-1980s under- Oing, interpreting, and preserving historical informa-
mined efforts by Soviet reformers to use the earnings tion from verbal accounts. Because such accounts are pro-
from oil exports to ease the transition from a command vided by eye witnesses or at least contemporaries to an