The Seven Sisters - The Great Oil Companies & the World They Shaped (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 393.0 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books; 8th Printing edition (January 1, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553139401
• ISBN-13: 978-0553139402
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #840,329 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent primer, but now a little outdated, April 13, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world they shaped (Hardcover)

This is an excellent primer on the OIL industry. I highly recommend for anyone interested in the history of 20th century Industry and World Politics.

This book will help any reader better understand recent Middle East events, as it provides details of the many decisions and actions that have led to the current situations. By providing the historic details and backdrop of the Oil Industry, a reader can gain better context for current actions, tensions and misunderstandings.

It's too bad this book has not been updated. My paperback edition ends with the Carter Administration.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I have seen on the subject, August 23, 2008

By	The Seeker (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world they shaped (Hardcover)

Having long been interested in the Oil Industry, one day I sat down and read "The Prize" by Daniel Yergen. It struck me as nothing more than PR for the Oil Industry, and to this day I wonder if Cambridge Energy Research Associates is nothing more than a PR firm posing as a research outfit - funded by the oil companies to provide the media "research" about the oil industry which always happens to correspond with what the oil industry wants people to believe.

Some years later I stumbled across The Seven Sisters in a university library and just loved it - it pulled back the curtain and revealed to me how the oil industry really works. The story of how a consortium of American and British oil companies controlled the supply (and thus the price) of oil for decades - and how power slowly shifted to national governments who had for years owned most of the world's oil but had had to stand by and watch the Seven Sisters reap virtually all of the profits.

While my review perhaps reveals some bias on my part - I think this book is extremely even handed and fair. I recommend it most highly.