In this fascinating story of oilmen at work, the author includes descriptions of how oil is discovered and pumped from land and sea, how it is transported, refined, and used in a myriad of the industry itself.

The man in hard hat, tartan shirt and jeans stepped down from the helicopter at Dyce Airport. He flourished what one of the waiting journalists later claimed looked like a salad cream bottle filled with flat Guinness. The man said, "Gentlemen, this is North Sea oil." The dramatic announcement on October 11, 1970 signaled the symbolic launch of an exciting new economic era for Scotland. In what was to become British Petroleum's fabulous Forties Field, 130 miles off Aberdeen, the seeds of a mega billion pound oil and gas industry had been sown. From that first trace of commercially viable hydrocarbons grew an industry which at its peak employed 125,000 people on and offshore in Scotland, created giant global corporations contributing more than £100 billion in fiscal revenues to the public coffers. The complex and powerful enterprise ­which would ultimately eclipse the scale of the same era's first moonshot in cost, daring and brilliant technical innovation ­irrevocably changed the lives of thousands of families, challenged a nation's political will and alleviated the UK's financial problems. The Oilmen reveals in words and dramatic pictures, the extraordinary personal stories of the brave men and women who made it all happen above and below some of the most treacherous waters on earth; the bold pioneers who laid the great pipelines and devised the leading edge technology that enabled the oil and gas and the massive revenues to flow. It tells of an early harsh unforgiving regime where money came before health and safety until a series of headlined disasters forced widespread change; it captures the rough camaraderie and the black humor of the crews of rigs, platforms and support ships; it follows the brave men who dived and frequently died for a living; it analyzes the unceasing offshore labor wars and it recounts the titanic pioneering efforts to tame a dangerous force of nature with the largest floating structures ever built by man.

In the 1970s and 1980s the Texas wildcatter was a recognizable figure in popular culture. Since then, the wildcatter's role is less celebrated but still important, as shown in the new introduction to this edition of a book originally published in 1984 by Texas Monthly Press. Drawing heavily on oral histories, this book tells the story of the West Texas independents as a group, looking at their business strategies in the context of their national, regional, and local conditions. The focus is on the Permian Basin and southeastern New Mexico over the sixty-year period in which the region rose to prominence on the American oil scene, producing about one-fifth of the nation's output. It is a story that covers vast technological change, governmental regulation, and economic fluctuation with profound implications for the oil and gas community. The new introduction brings the story up-to-date by addressing not only the subsequent careers of the wildcatters described in the book but also the role of independents in the current economy. ROGER M. OLIEN, who holds a Ph.D. from Brown University, lives in Austin and is a member of the TSHA Speakers Bureau.DIANA DAVIDS HINTON holds the J. Conrad Dunagan Chair in regional and business history at the University of Texas-Permian Basin. Her Ph.D. is from Yale University.

“Full of schadenfreude and speculation—and solid, timely history too.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile speculation for the sons—a story that resonates with today's economic upheaval.” —Publishers Weekly “What's not to enjoy about a book full of monstrous egos, unimaginable sums of money, and the punishment of greed and shortsightedness?” —The Economist Phenomenal reviews and sales greeted the hardcover publication of The Big Rich, New York Times bestselling author Bryan Burrough's spellbinding chronicle of Texas oil. Weaving together the multigenerational sagas of the industry's four wealthiest families, Burrough brings to life the men known in their day as the Big Four: Roy Cullen, H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, and Sid Richardson, all swaggering Texas oil tycoons who owned sprawling ranches and mingled with presidents and Hollywood stars. Seamlessly charting their collective rise and fall, The Big Rich is a hugely entertaining account that only a writer with Burrough's abilities-and Texas upbringing-could have written.

A groundbreaking new history of the United States, showing how Christian faith and the pursuit of petroleum fueled America's rise to global power and shaped today's political clashes Anointed with Oil places religion and oil at the center of American history. As prize-winning historian Darren Dochuk reveals, from the earliest discovery of oil in America during the Civil War, citizens saw oil as the nation's special blessing and its peculiar burden, the source of its prophetic mission in the world. Over the century that followed and down to the present day, the oil industry's leaders and its ordinary workers together fundamentally transformed American religion, business, and politics -- boosting America's ascent as the preeminent global power, giving shape to modern evangelical Christianity, fueling the rise of the Republican Right, and setting the terms for today's political and environmental debates. Ranging from the Civil War to the present, from West Texas to Saudi Arabia to the Alberta Tar Sands, and from oil-patch boomtowns to the White House, this is a sweeping, magisterial book that transforms how we understand our nation's history.

Follow Billy Cochrane from the day he quit school in grade 11 to find work in the Leduc oil discovery, to eventually fight, claw, drink and above all, work his way to becoming a colossus in the industry.

The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm. The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.

In the 1960s and 1970s, America experienced a sports revolution. New professional sports franchises and leagues were established, new stadiums were built, football and basketball grew in popularity, and the proliferation of television enabled people across the country to support their favorite teams and athletes from the comfort of their homes. At the same time, the civil rights and feminist movements were reshaping the nation, broadening the boundaries of social and political participation. The Sports Revolution tells how these forces came together in the Lone Star State. Tracing events from the end of Jim Crow to the 1980s, Frank Guridy chronicles the unlikely alliances that integrated professional and collegiate sports and launched women’s tennis. He explores the new forms of inclusion and exclusion that emerged during the era, including the role the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders played in defining womanhood in the age of second-wave feminism. Guridy explains how the sexual revolution, desegregation, and changing demographics played out both on and off the field as he recounts how the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers and how Mexican American fans and their support for the Spurs fostered a revival of professional basketball in San Antonio. Guridy argues that the catalysts for these changes were undone by the same forces of commercialization that set them in motion and reveals that, for better and for worse, Texas was at the center of America’s expanding political, economic, and emotional investments in sport.

The history of the United States of America is also the history of the energy sector. Natural gas provides the fuel that allows us to heat our homes in winter and cool them in summer with the touch of a button or turn of a dial—when the industry runs smoothly. From the oil crisis of the 1970s to the fall of Enron and the California electricity crisis at the turn of the century to contemporary issues of hydraulic fracking, poorly conceived government policies have sometimes left us shivering, stranded, or with significantly lighter wallets. In this expansive narrative, Charles Blanchard traces the rise of natural gas and the regulatory missteps that nearly ruined the market. Beginning in the 1880s, The Extraction State explains how the New Deal regulatory compact came together in the 1920s, even before the Great Depression, and how it fell apart in the 1970s. From there, the book dissects the policies that affect us today, and explores where we might be headed in the near future.