Customer Reviews

The History of the Standard Oil Company

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This is a wonderful account of the beginnings of the Standard Oil Company - from the perspective of one of the premier muckracker's of the 19th century. The book is mainly a series of articles strung together detailing some of the more illegal efforts of John D. Rockefeller to create a monopoly in the oil industry. It is a classic account of how to create a monopoly and has stories that involve everything from dynamiting the competition to innovative rebate plans that discourage competition..

This book is over 800 pages, starting from the early U.S. oil companies competing with one another in an 1890's style industrial struggle. It has detail. If you like hard data this is the source. Daunted by the size of this tome? read the last three chapters first. "The Price of Oil", "The legitimate Greatness of The Company" and "The Conclusion": these three chapters will put the present day in a new light for you. The Caspian Sea was an oil field before the Bolschevik Revolution. At that time czarist Russia was a world contender. Now Caspian Sea oil has been "rediscovered". What was the Burma oil co.? What were the yearly production figures? what were the various allocations of oil use? What role were other countries playing? This is the place to find it.

The kindle edition of this book is cheap (99 cents) for a reason. Tons of typos and missing words/sentences. It's still readable but frustrating at times to follow.

Be advised - There are lots of typos because this is an old manuscript. The original was scanned and there are times the software missed words. If you can get through the typos your home free. The publisher does offer an online version without the typing errors.

All in all a good historical account of Standard Oils contribution to today's oil industry.

USA has her less proud moment. Those who remember those days would be more forgiving to others. Those who unfortunately unable to remember or are ignorant about those days would believe they have occupied the highest moral high ground. For the latter, this book is valuable.