Bücher von Marius S. Vassiliou

The nineteenth century was an exciting and dynamic era of rapid progress in industry and technology. One of the most vigorous of the new industries was petroleum. It first transformed the way people lit their houses, displacing whale oil and other substitutes, and then revolutionized the entire field of energy and helped create the modern world. During the nineteenth century, oil was overwhelmingly dominated by the United States and the Russian Empire, together responsible for 97% of the world's production; and over the course of the century, nearly all the Russian Empire's oil came from the territory that is now the independent state of Azerbaijan. Many people don't know that the world's first industrial oil well was drilled in Azerbaijan in 1846, thirteen years before Drake's celebrated well in Pennsylvania. This book covers oil in the United States and Azerbaijan, in all its dynamism, from its earliest beginnings to the turn of the twentieth century. It treats both business and technology, from the early wildcatters to Standard Oil and the Nobel Brothers (yes, that remarkable family created more than a famous prize!). The book echoes into the present day; for good or ill, oil still moves the world.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Petroleum Industry contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on companies, people, events, technologies, countries, provinces, cities, and regions.

The world as we have known it for the past century would have been very different without petroleum. Petroleum, particularly in the form of crude oil and its refined products, has been central to all aspects of modern industrial society and has been a major strategic geopolitical objective for nations. The 20th century was the age of oil, and at least part of the 21st century will be as well. Petroleum is used as an energy source and as a raw material for the production of an immense variety of chemicals and synthetic materials. Almost all the world's food relies on petroleum for fertilizer, pesticides, cultivation, or transport. Petroleum has been particularly dominant as a source of transportation fuels, an application for which cost-effective substitutes will be especially difficult to find. The A to Z of the Petroleum Industry presents a concise but complete one-volume reference on the history of the petroleum industry from pre-modern times to the present day. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on companies, people, places, events, technologies, and phenomena related to the history of the world's petroleum industry. Anyone interested in the history, status, and outlook for the petroleum industry will find this book a uniquely valuable source.