How oil greases the wheels of global capitalism

This expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse', Crude Capitalism uncovers the surprising ways that oil is woven into the fabric of our modern world: the rise of an American-centered global order; the breakdown of Empire and anti-colonial rebellion; contemporary finance and US dollar hegemony; debt and militarism; and the emergence of new forms of synthetic consumption. Much more than an energy source or transport fuel, oil has a foundational place in all aspects of contemporary life - no challenge to the fossil fuel industry can be effective without taking this fact seriously.

Crude Capitalism maps the varied geographies of oil, including the rise of OPEC, the importance of revolutionary and Post-Soviet Russia, the crucial role of African upstream reserves, and the new petrochemical circuits that link the Middle East, China, and East Asia. The book provides an original and fine-grained empirical analysis of corporate ownership and control, including refining and petrochemicals.

By exposing these structures of power and placing oil in capitalism, the book makes an essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.

"A rewarding reconsideration of oil's ascendance on the world stage." - Publishers Weekly

"An essential contribution to debates around oil dependency and the struggle for climate justice." - Green Left

"Excellent ... an invaluable read in the growing area of radical oil studies" - Ephemera Journal

"Crude Capitalism tackles its big, difficult themes with precision and attention to detail. It is beautifully presented and organised." - Ecologist

"A fascinating and enormously useful examination of the role oil has played in the development of global capitalism ... [Crude Capitalism] should be widely read, seriously studied and taken into the struggle for climate justice." - Counterfire

"An excellent book for understanding the fundamental causal connections between our economic system and the destruction of our environment wrought by the rise of oil." - Labour Hub

"Importantly, Hanieh's book isn't limited to studying oil as a liquid fuel, but "what oil becomes as it circulates within capitalism" as a transport fuel, energy source and as petrochemicals, as well as its connections to food, financial systems and its centrality to the US dollar as the dominant global currency." - Green Left

"A must read ... Crude Capitalism is withering in its critique of the oil industry's corporate greenwashing." - rs21

"Crude Capitalism provides an indispensable context for analyzing the world capitalist system and oil's peculiar role in producing and maintaining its geopolitical structure-thus challenging many of the truisms and shorthand assumptions of the global left." - Spectre Journal

"A compelling explanation of how this world of too much oil came to be ... Hanieh's book ... offer[s] valuable methodological provocations and tools to progressive lawyers." - International Journal of Law in Context

"[A] densely packed yet highly readable history of our interaction with oil at every step from its extraction to its consumption." - Brooklyn Rail

"Highly interesting and informative..Hanieh has marshaled his considerable expertise to provide this summary and succeeds marvelously in giving us the historical background to why the oil industry has such a deadly grip on today's world and a clear-headed analysis in what that grip means for us and our descendants." - Counterpunch