Customer Reviews

The Seven Sisters: The great oil companies & the world they shaped

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

Obviously this is a dated work, but I had heard about this book for a long time. It explains the dominance of Mobil, Exxon, Shell, BP, Socal (Chevron), Gulf, and Texaco. These big oil companies basically set up a monopoly or cartel, and gouged the producers and consumers at the same time. These companies also made it easy for Opec to control the oil industry in the late seventies and early eighties. Of course much has changed since then. Gulf no longer exists, BP bought out Sohio and Amoco, Exxon and Mobil merged, and Texaco merged with an independent Phillips. Opec has also evolved, so things have really changed. Libya is no longer the rabble rouser of the world, the Shah was overthroun, and Saddam is dead. The Saudis still exercise a lot of control of the oil industry.

This is a great book about the oil industry. Although dated, it gives the low down of the cartel that the seven sisters made. The American Government should have never let these companies get so big and powerful. They became extra legal corporations.

This is THE book to read if you want to understand how BIG OIL is stealing your money ...
This explains their dealings from Rockefeller to the 70's oil embargo.
In the Michigan area SPEEDWAY gas is the FIRST to go up & LAST to come down.
SPEEDWAY STARTS the price increases .... I buy NOTHING from them .
This book is a MUST read to comprehend BIG OIL .

I own mineral rights for oil. I work out of my home. I haven't had time to read this yet although it's next on my list. It came in Okay condition right away.