Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia (Harvard Historical Studies)
Alison Fleig Frank | 2007-09-15 00:00:00 | Harvard University Press | 366 | Economics
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Austrian Empire ranked third among the world's oil-producing states (surpassed only by the United States and Russia), and accounted for five percent of global oil production. By 1918, the Central Powers did not have enough oil to maintain a modern military. How and why did the promise of oil fail Galicia (the province producing the oil) and the Empire?
In a brilliantly conceived work, Alison Frank traces the interaction of technology, nationalist rhetoric, social tensions, provincial politics, and entrepreneurial vision in shaping the Galician oil industry. She portrays this often overlooked oil boom's transformation of the environment, and its reorientation of religious and social divisions that had defined a previously agrarian population, as surprising alliances among traditional foes sprang up among workers and entrepreneurs, at the workplace, and in the pubs and brothels of new oiltowns.
Frank sets this complex story in a context of international finance, technological exchange, and Habsburg history as a sobering counterpoint to traditional modernization narratives. As the oil ran out, the economy, the population, and the environment returned largely to their former state, reminding us that there is nothing ineluctable about the consequences of industrial development.
(20060810)Reviews
This book is a rare historical work which combines readability and depth of insight. While I have read others that also achieve this mark, OIL EMPIRE is one of the few that does so and still maintains the specificity of an academic work. At times I found the author violated Orwell's dictum to use the simplest vocabulary to convey an idea, but this did not distract from the pleasure of reading this book. I tend to focus more on classical histories, and new nothing about the history of Galicia before I started, but I found the the author was able to situate her research so that this was not a problem. When I finished the book I was reminded of the old saying that to understand a large problem we must first understand a small problem. After the events of 9/11 it is no longer just the leftists who assert that control of the oil economy is at the heart of our foreign policy. This book provides a case study of how the same ambitions that we have today were played out on a smaller scale at the turn of the last century. I look forward to seeing what the author has in store for her next work.
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