Table of Contents

List of Figures, Tables, and Boxes vi Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 1 The Nature of a Political Resource 5 2 Capturing Oil 35 3 Marketing Oil 69 4 Securing Oil 93 5 Developing Through Oil 125 6 Governing Oil 153 7 Better and Beyond: The Future of Oil 180 Notes 206 Selected Readings 226 Index 235

About the Author

Philippe le Billon is associate professor at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia. He has worked for environmental and humanitarian organizations in Angola, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and the former Yugoslavia. Gavin Bridge is a reader in economic geography at the University of Manchester. He has published widely on the geography of natural resources.

Reviews

"Its accessible language, comprehensive treatment of the subject and affordable pricing make this indispensable reading." International Affairs "Brimming with rich conceptual insights and expert empirical detail." Economic Geography "You will not find a better guide to the new geopolitics of hydrocarbons." Michael Ross, University of California Los Angeles"No comparable book so effectively covers the core issues as well as Oil and none so effectively provides a road synthesis of key trends and debates with such economy of style and richness of detail." Michael Watts, University of California, Berkeley "This book is a 'must-read' antidote to current arguments about the scarcity of oil. Not only do Bridge and Le Billon comprehensively demolish those claims, they positively submit a twenty-first century 'beyond oil's prospective' for the future." Peter R. Odell, Erasmus University, Rotterdam