Power Play: Oil in the Middle East

by Leonard Mosley

Power Oil in the Middle Leonard Power Oil in the Middle Random FIRST First Edition Thus, 2nd Printing. Published by Random House, 1973. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good. with the previous owner's name inscribed on the half title page, ex-libris stamp on the paste down, and a stamp to the top page ends Dust jacket is very good with a few repaired tears to the edges and price clipped. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 329799 Business We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!

Genres: History

457 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Leonard Oswald Mosley OBE OStJ (11 February 1913 – June 1992) was a British journalist, historian, biographer and novelist. His works include five novels and biographies of General George Marshall, Reich Marshall Hermann Göring, Orde Wingate, Walt Disney, Charles Lindbergh, Du Pont family, Eleanor Dulles, Allen Welsh Dulles, John Foster Dulles and Darryl F. Zanuck. He also worked as chief war correspondent for London's The Sunday Times.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year is 1972. Oil costs $2.30 a barrel. Saddam Hussein is the Vice-President of Iraq. Gamal Nassar is the President of Egypt. A twenty-something captain in the Libyan army named Muammar Gaddafi has recently seized power in that country in name of Arab Socialism. American and British petroleum companies have long term concession agreements from all Arab countries which allows them to extract as much oil as they can pump and ship to the First World for refining. There is a rising tide of Arab Nationalism squarely set to collide with the energy needs of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. The Soviet Union is doing as much as possible to stoke Arab resentment against Western foreign policy and capitalist pricing structures. What is going to happen in the long run with world's petroleum supplies?

I have to admit when I first picked up Leonard Mosley's "Power Play: Oil in the Middle East" on the dollar paperback shelf at the Prison Bookstore in Claremont I was going to put it back down because it was a dated piece of current events writing. Then I thought, "What the heck, it looks well written, I will give it a shot." So I did. And it was awesome.

Mosley gives an exhaustive history of how the British extracted oil concessions from the defeated Ottoman Empire after the Great War and first discovered oil in Persia and Iraq. That company would become the British Petroleum of today. Then Mosley gives a blow by blow account of how Standard Oil of California circumvented the Brits and maneuvered their way into Saudi Arabia in the 1930's to find fabulous amounts of oil to exploit. I particularly liked the way Mosley recounted the weird symbiotic relationship between the Saudi royal family and ARAMCO the American petroleum company that owned drilling rights in that country.

Mosley then addresses issues of Arab nationalism, tensions with Israel, relations with the Soviet Union, and conflicts with "Western Oilmen".

I was super interested in Mosley's future predictions and "What if?" questions posed in 1972 since I had the benefit of residing 40 years in the future.

It turns out politics in the Middle East are still pretty dicey.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leonard Mosley's landmark history of the Western Oil Companies and their relations and interactions with the Oil States of the Middle East is an impressive achievement, especially being published just as this world of oil, politics, and power was changing. Published in 1973 as OPEC was about to emerge as a critical player in world oil markets, the author was able to draw upon the memories and memoirs of many of key players in the previous century's development of Middle Eastern oil. With experience as a journalist, novelist, and historian he was able to talk to oil roughnecks, western financiers, sheikhs, oil ministers, etc. to present a well rounded look at how this industry and the region grew and developed. However, written and published over a half century ago, there are aspects of the book that are out of date especially in some of its treatment of the emerging oil states. But whatever flaws you might find in this book, anyone interested in how our world's relationship with oil developed needs to read this book.