Introduction. The cash-value of decolonization; 1. One periphery: the creation of sovereign rights, 1949–55; 2. Past concessions: the Arab League, sovereign rights, and OPEC, 1955–60; 3. Histories of petroleum colonization: oil elites and sovereign rights, 1960–7; 4. Rights and failure: the 1967 Arab oil embargo; 5. Nationalist heroes: imperial withdrawal, the Cold War, and oil control, 1967–70; 6. A turning point of our history: the insurrectionists and oil, 1970–1; 7. A fact of life: the consolidation of sovereign rights, 1971–3; 8. The OPEC syndrome: the Third World's energy crisis, 1973–5; Conclusion. Dead by its own law? Decolonization, sovereignty, and culture.
Oil Revolution chronicles the rise and fall of anti-colonial oil elites who forged a new international culture of economic dissent from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Christopher R. W. Dietrich is Assistant Professor of History at Fordham University, New York. He has been awarded fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the American Historical Association, the National History Center, Yale University, Connecticut, the University of Texas, Austin, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
'Dietrich's Oil Revolution is a triumph of research and writing.
This is an indispensable book, illuminating the central role
petroleum played in the transition from the global Keynesianism of
the 1960s to the neoliberalism of the 1980s. A tour-de-force
synthesis of intellectual, political, and economic history.' Greg
Grandin, New York University
'In this compelling history, Dietrich takes the international
politics of oil as a starting point to not only explore how Third
World elites offered revolutionary new claims for economic
sovereignty but also to demonstrate the absolute centrality of the
global South in the making of the late twentieth century world.'
Mark Philip Bradley, University of Chicago
'A game-changing account of where the ideas that matter to the
world economy come from. Dietrich traces the work of the Arab and
kindred anticolonial intellectuals who led the successful movement
for national sovereignty over natural resources.' Robert Vitalis,
University of Pennsylvania and author of the forthcoming
Oilcraft
'As Dietrich shows in this brilliant and essential new account, the
oil crisis of 1973–74 culminated in a decades-long anti-colonial
campaign, waged by Third World elites for control of economic
resources. Dietrich expands our understanding of the politics of
oil and achieves new vantage on global change. His achievement is
vital reading for students of post-1945 international politics and
economics.' Daniel Sargent, University of California, Berkeley
'An outstanding book on the relationship between sovereignty and
international economic justice, highlighting how the search for
fairer oil prices changed some of the most fundamental aspects of
international affairs.' O. A. Westad, Harvard University,
Massachusetts and author of The Cold War: A World History
'In this beautifully conceived study, Christopher R. W. Dietrich
uses the history of sovereign rights over oil to show the power and
the profound limits of legal ideas during the era of decolonization
and its aftermath. For anti-colonial elites, sovereign rights
redressed past wrongs and also democratized global politics, but
their vision ultimately foundered under the burden of sovereign
debt. Highly recommended.' Mary L. Dudziak, Asa Griggs Candler
Professor of Law, Emory University, Georgia and President of the
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
'This work weaves together the history of oil from the 50's through
the 70's with a post-colonial struggle for international economic
justice. It is at once an analytical account of international
economic history and of international law through the eyes of
anti-colonial elites who sought an end to their countries'
underdevelopment by claiming sovereignty over their natural
resources. Beautifully researched, this compelling book is a
testament to Dr Dietrich's keen ability to elucidate this critical
period of twentieth century global history.' Margot E. Salomon,
London School of Economics and Political Science
'This volume (a revised doctoral dissertation) is well researched
and persuasively argued. Dietrich believes sovereign rights'
advances brought about a 'profound change in human history', yet
they did not inaugurate a new international economic order,
equalizing conditions of global north and south. Recommended.' G.
A. McBeath, Choice
'The originality of the research, especially the excavation of the
pivotal role played by transnational oil elites, makes the book an
important resource for scholars of international history and
international political economy. Indeed, no concise, thorough, and
readable narrative of this period in oil history has been available
until the publication of this book.' Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt,
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
'By taking oil elites, anticolonial elites in general, and their
ideas seriously and by treating them respectfully though not
uncritically, Dietrich has reminded us that while the powerful
generally prevail, the ideas and actions of the less powerful are
important and can have an impact.' David S. Painter, H-Diplo
Roundtable Review
'In his superb account of anticolonial elite networks,
decolonization, and the twentieth-century history of global oil,
Christopher R. W. Dietrich contributes to a number of different
strands of scholarship. … Oil Revolution should be considered one
of those transformative texts that both breaks new ground in terms
of how historians understand the evolution of the international oil
economy and lights the way towards a multitude of new histories of
the decolonizing, post-colonial and Cold War era.' Ben Offiler,
H-Diplo Roundtable Review
'Dietrich's book is an outstanding piece of scholarship, which
engages the entangled histories of economic decolonization and
international law.' Sara Lorenzini, H-Diplo Roundtable Review
'Dietrich provides a rich history of ideas, linking the work of the
new elite on the nature of oil concessions to an array of European
and American intellectuals concerned with international law and
economic development, such as Albert O. Hirschman and Gunnar Myrdal
… There is much to recommend in this work and its careful
construction of the new international arena from an alternative
perspective.' Karl Ittmann, The American Historical Review
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