Crude Politics (eBook)

The California Oil Market, 1900-1940

Paul Sabin (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2004
327 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-93114-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Energy shortages, climate change, and the debate over national security have thrust oil policy to the forefront of American politics. How did Americans grow so dependent on petroleum, and what can we learn from our history that will help us craft successful policies for the future? In this timely and absorbing book, Paul Sabin challenges us to see politics and law as crucial forces behind the dramatic growth of the U.S. oil market during the twentieth century. Using pre-World War II California as a case study of oil production and consumption, Sabin demonstrates how struggles in the legislature and courts over property rights, regulatory law, and public investment determined the shape of the state's petroleum landscape. Sabin provides a powerful corrective to the enduring myth of "e;free markets"e; by demonstrating how political decisions affected the institutions that underlie California's oil economy and how the oil market and price structure depend significantly on the ways in which policy questions were answered before World War II. His concise and probing analysis casts fresh light on the historical relationship between business and government and on the origins of contemporary problems such as climate change and urban sprawl. Incisive, engaging, and meticulously researched, Crude Politics illuminates an important chapter in U.S. environmental, legal, business, and political history and the history of the American West.

Inhalt

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Structuring the Oil Market
PART ONE — Federal Property
1. The End of the Old Property Regime
2. The Politics of the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act
PART TWO — State Property
3. Beaches versus Oil in Southern California
4. "The Same Unsavory Smell of Teapot Dome"
PART THREE — Regulation
5. The Struggle to Control California Oil Production
6. Federalism and the Unruly California Oil Market
PART FOUR — Consumption
7. "Transportation by Taxation"
8. Defending the User-Financing System
Conclusion: The Politics of Petroleum Prices
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 13.12.2004
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Elektrotechnik / Energietechnik
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft
• Schlagworte: Alternative Energy • American West • Big Business • California • california oil • climate change • crude oil • Energy • Environment • Environmentalism • Environmental Issues • foreign policy • Fossil Fuels • Frontier • global warming • Government • government policy • government regulation • Land Rights • Middle East • Mineral rights • national security • Nonfiction • Oil Consumption • Oil Economy • Oil Market • oil policy • oil production • Petroleum • property rights • renewable energy • Saudi Arabia • terrorism • urban sprawl
• ISBN-10: 0-520-93114-9 / 0520931149
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-93114-5 / 9780520931145