Oil and Sovereignty

Rüdiger Graf heads the Research Department on Economic History at ZZF Potsdam. He received his doctorate from the Humboldt University of Berlin and has also taught at Ruhr-University, Bochum. He is the author of Die Zukunft der Weimarer Republik: Krisen und Zukunftsaneignungen in Deutschland 1918–1933 (2005) and co-author of Europäische Zeitgeschichte seit 1945 (2010), an introductory textbook on postwar European history.

“In the first substantive chapter of his [fascinating], thoroughly researched tome, he traces the rise of oil to the central energy commodity in the global north after 1945… One of the key strengths of Graf ’s book is its comparative dimension, because it allows him to follow the entangled reactions of different nation states to the crisis, in the process showing how internationalism and national frames influenced each other.” • Moving the Social“The author has to be commended for the wealth of information and detail and for providing researchers with a key instrument to understand the energy crisis of the 1970s.” • Journal of Contemporary History“…deeply researched and creatively conceived…Among its many strengths, Oil and Sovereignty demonstrates the benefits of a comparative as opposed to a purely national perspective. Every serious scholar of oil and international relations should study this exemplary work and engage its arguments.” • H-Net“…an outstanding book [that] paints a profoundly complex picture of the wrenching transformations of the 1970s, and makes a powerful case that the roots of our current travails lay in that traumatic decade that is only now coming into better historical focus with detailed studies like his own.” • EuropeNowPraise for the German Edition:“Succeeds in the difficult task of shedding new light on a topic that has been analysed from many different perspectives… It deserves a wide readership.” • German History“Highly convincing… Decisively broadens our understanding of the oil crisis of 1973–74.” • H-Soz-Kult

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Sovereignty and Petro-KnowledgeChapter 1. The World of Oil in the 1950s and 1960sChapter 2. Shortages, Forecasts, Prevention: Supplying the Western World with OilChapter 3. The Global Communication of the ‘Arab Oil Weapon’Chapter 4. The Politics of Sovereignty in the Energy Crisis: The United StatesChapter 5. West Germany within the World of OilChapter 6. Oil Conferences: Global Interdependence and National SovereigntyChapter 7. Petro-Knowledge, the Perception of Limits and Sovereignty: Creating the Oil CrisisConclusion: Sovereignty in Crisis and the Oil Crisis in Contemporary HistoryBibliographyIndex