Oil: The Making of the Modern World (TRIH ep 167)

1914 · Resource

Hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook interview Helen Thompson about the central role of oil in modern geopolitics. They trace awareness of petroleum from ancient authors (Herodotus, Pliny) through 19th-century kerosene and the rise of US producers (Standard Oil) to the strategic anxieties of Britain and Germany before World War I, with particular emphasis on Baku and Persia. Thompson argues oil reshaped both world wars' geostrategic calculations, influenced British imperial policy (Suez) a...

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