Table of Contents

Background - 1853-91; origins - 1892-98; too far, too fast - 1899-1906; two into one - 1907-14; the Great War - 1914-18; a vast and world-wide scale - 1919-25; roaring along - 1925-29; surviving the flood - 1930-1934; on the roller-coaster - 1935-39; fuelling democracy - 1939-45; the fight to recover - 1946-51; all the world's a stage - 1952-6; Suez and after - 1957-62; an operation without parallel - 1963-7; the end of the buyer's market - 1967-72; cataclysm - 1973-7; slings and arrows - 1978-82; exit OPEC - 1983-7; deeper and still deeper - 1988-92; the changing shape of Shell - 1993-7.