Yergin's clear aim is not to break new ground, to theorize or to blame. Partisans will lament his avoidance of the charged debate over whether the oil barons and their political allies have been greedy devils or mostly instruments of market forces.īut Mr. Economists will quibble about his failure to provide a theoretical apparatus to guide the reader through the various rounds of expansion and consolidation in the oil industry.
Yergin essentially retells familiar stories.
"The Prize" exceeds in comprehensiveness and care the only comparable effort, a study (and a good one) about the major oil companies entitled "The Seven Sisters," by Anthony Sampson. Yergin, the president of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and the author of "Shattered Peace," is almost uniquely qualified for the task. Half historian and half energy expert, Mr. Yergin in a work that deserves to become the standard text on the history of oil. These are among the roots and cycles recaptured by Mr. In 1950, he wrote to King Ibn Saud that Washington "is interested in the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia," and that threats to the kingdom would be "a matter of immediate concern to the United States." Truman virtually committed the United States to the defense of the Saudi realm. Yet as we learn in "The Prize," Daniel Yergin's timely book, long before the assurances of the Carter and Reagan Administrations, President Harry S. It would be totally out of character for the low-key present Saudi rulers, however, to say they expect assistance of a similar kind from their current American protectors. And the Sabahs, not reputed for their largeness of spirit, do not hesitate to remind their hosts of the old debt. The Saud family wandered in exile until invited to the city-state of Kuwait, ruled by the Sabah family.Ī hundred years later, the Sabahs fled across the same desert in their helicopters and Mercedes-Benzes just ahead of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi hordes. His son, the future King of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, made part of that journey in a bag hung on a camel. IN 1891, Abdul Rahman, the nominal governor of Riyadh, fled with his family from the city, then under the control of a hated rival. THE PRIZE The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power.
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