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.

LBJ aims to expose Vice President Johnson’s active role in the assassination of President Kennedy and how he began planning his takeover of the U.S. presidency even before being named the vice presidential nominee in 1960. Lyndon B. Johnson’s flawed personality and character traits were formed when he was a child, and grew unchecked for the rest of his life as he suffered severe bouts of manic depression and bipolar disorder. He successfully hid this disorder from the public as he bartered, stole, and finessed his way through the corridors of power on Capitol Hill—though records have been uncovered proving some of his aides knew of his mental illness. Phillip F. Nelson, after years of researching Johnson and the JFK assassination, concludes that during his vice presidency Johnson suffered progressively stronger bouts of mental collapse as he was busy undermining Kennedy’s domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the purpose of cunningly saving them for his own legacy. His involvement with JFK’s assassination is conclusively drawn with both text and photographic evidence showing Johnson’s knowledge of when and where the assassination would take place. Nelson’s careful and meticulous research has led him to uncover secrets from one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in our country’s history.

In 1963, he began work as a civil engineer working on the California State Water Project, and he went on to develop large energy projects throughout the worldcapping his career working with Bechtel on the Big Dig in Boston. Energy Reality reveals how energy, politics, and power are intertwined. Highlights include power struggles between United States of America and Russia/the Soviet Union to be the worlds largest producer of petroleum, which began after the Rothschilds took a shortcut through the Suez Canal, secretly opening the Asian market to kerosene; John Watson Foster, his son-in-law, Robert Lansing, and Uncle Berts two nephews, John Foster and Allen Dulles, who made certain that Sullivan & Cromwell clients retained control of Middle East oil; and Germany and Japan and how they were excluded from sharing oil wealth from the Middle East. The author also examines five postwar oil crises, including the taking of American hostages in Iran by the Khomeini regime in 1979, and how Vladimir Putin is seeking to turn Russia into a powerful petro state.

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.

Marcus Samuel Jr. is an unorthodox Jewish merchant trader. Henri Deterding is a take-no-prisoners oilman. In 1889, John D. Rockefeller is at the peak of his power. Having annihilated all competition and dominating the oil market, even the US government is wary of challenging Standard Oil. The Standard never loses - that is until Samuel and Deterding team up to form Royal Dutch Shell. A riveting account of ambition, oil and greed, Breaking Rockefeller traces Samuel and Deterding's rise to the top of the oil industry, and the collapse of Rockefeller's monopoly.

Remote, forbidding, and volatile, the Caspian Sea long tantalized the world with its vast oil reserves. But outsiders, blocked by the closed Soviet system, couldn’t get to it. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and a wholesale rush into the region erupted. Along with oilmen, representatives of the world’s leading nations flocked to the Caspian for a share of the thirty billion barrels of proven oil reserves at stake, and a tense geopolitical struggle began. The main players were Moscow and Washington–the former seeking to retain control of its satellite states, and the latter intent on dislodging Russia to the benefit of the West. The Oil and the Glory is the gripping account of this latest phase in the epochal struggle for control of the earth’s “black gold.” Steve LeVine, who was based in the region for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Newsweek, weaves an astonishing tale of high-stakes political gamesmanship, greed, and scandal, set in one of the most opaque corners of the world. In LeVine’s telling, the world’s energy giants jockey for position in the rich Kazakh and Azeri oilfields, while superpowers seek to gain a strategic foothold in the region and to keep each other in check. At the heart of the story is the contest to build and operate energy pipelines out of the landlocked region, the key to controlling the Caspian and its oil. The oil pipeline that resulted, the longest in the world, is among Washington’s greatest foreign policy triumphs in at least a decade and a half. Along the way, LeVine introduces such players as James Giffen, an American moneyman who was also the political “fixer” for oil companies eager to do business on the Caspian and the broker for Kazakhstan’s president and ministers; John Deuss, the flamboyant Dutch oil trader who won big but lost even bigger; Heydar Aliyev, the oft-misunderstood Azeri president who transcended his past as a Soviet Politburo member and masterminded a scheme to loosen Russian control over its former colonies in the Caspian region; and all manner of rogues, adventurers, and others drawn by the irresistible pull of untold riches and the possible “final frontier” of the fossil-fuel era. The broader story is of the geopolitical questions of the Caspian oil bonanza, such as whether Russia can be a trusted ally and trading partner with the West, and what Washington’s entry into this important but chaotic region will mean for its long-term stability. In an intense and suspenseful narrative, The Oil and the Glory is the definitive chronicle of events that are understood by few, but whose political and economic impact will be both profound and lasting.

Located in the Oklahoma Collection.

The United States and Mexico trade many commodities, the most important of which are indispensable sources of energy—crude oil and agricultural labor. Mexican oil and workers provide cheap and reliable energy for the United States, while US petro dollars and agricultural jobs supply much-needed income for the Mexican economy. Mexico’s economic dependence on the United States is well-known, but The Politics of Dependency makes a compelling case that the United States is also economically dependent on Mexico. Expanding dependency theory beyond the traditional premise that weak countries are dominated by powerful ones, Martha Menchaca investigates how the United States and Mexico have developed an asymmetrical codependency that disproportionally benefits the United States. In particular, she analyzes how US foreign policy was designed to enable the US government to help shape the development of Mexico’s oil industry, as well as how migration from Mexico to the United States has been regulated by the US Congress to ensure that American farmers have sufficient labor. This unprecedented dual study of energy sectors that are usually examined in isolation reveals the extent to which the United States has become economically dependent on Mexico, even as it remains the dominant partner in the relationship. It also exposes the long-term effects of the agricultural policies of NAFTA, which led to the unemployment of millions of agricultural workers in Mexico, a large percentage of whom relocated to the United States.