Awards

• Winner of Winner of the 2020 Richard W. Leopold Prize from the Organization of American Historians.

Overview

The history of oil is a chapter in the story of Europe's geopolitical decline in the twentieth century. During the era of the two world wars, a lack of oil constrained Britain and Germany from exerting their considerable economic and military power independently. Both nations' efforts to restore the independence they had enjoyed during the Age of Coal backfired by inducing strategic over-extension, which served only to hasten their demise as great powers. Having fought World War I with oil imported from the United States, Britain was determined to avoid relying upon another great power for its energy needs ever again. Even before the Great War had ended, Whitehall implemented a strategy of developing alternative sources of oil under British control. Britain's key supplier would be the Middle East - already a region of vital importance to the British Empire - whose oil potential was still unproven. As it turned out, there was plenty of oil in the Middle East, but Italian hostility after 1935 threatened transit through the Mediterranean. A shortage of tankers ruled out re-routing shipments around Africa, forcing Britain to import oil from US-controlled sources in the Western Hemisphere and depleting its foreign exchange reserves. Even as war loomed in 1939, therefore, Britain's quest for independence from the United States had failed.Germany was in an even worse position than Britain. It could not import oil from overseas in wartime due to the threat of blockade, while accumulating large stockpiles was impossible because of the economic and financial costs. The Third Reich went to war dependent on petroleum synthesized from coal, domestic crude oil, and overland imports, primarily from Romania. German leaders were confident, however, that they had enough oil to fight a series of short campaigns that would deliver to them the mastery of Europe. This plan derailed following the victory over France, when Britain continued to fight. This left Germany responsible for Europe's oil requirements while cut off from world markets. A looming energy crisis in Axis Europe, the absence of strategic alternatives, and ideological imperatives all compelled Germany in June 1941 to invade the Soviet Union and fulfill the Third Reich's ultimate ambition of becoming a world power - a decision that ultimately sealed its fate.

Full Product Details

9780198834601

Table of Contents

Reviews

Anand Toprani's Oil and the Great Powers successfully interlaces scholarship on Germany and Britain during the war with work on oil politics more broadly. In doing so, it shows the value of such integrated histories that complicate yet enrich traditional understandings of key historical and geopolitical events. It stresses how international relations shaped each state's approach to oil and vice versa. More importantly, this work will hopefully serve as an impetus for a continuing examination of oil and other energy resources in order to further develop our understanding of crucial historical issues. * Aleksandra Pomiecko, Europe Now *

Anand Toprani's Oil and the Great Powers successfully interlaces scholarship on Germany and Britain during the war with work on oil politics more broadly. In doing so, it shows the value of such integrated histories that complicate yet enrich traditional understandings of key historical and geopolitical events. It stresses how international relations shaped each state's approach to oil and vice versa. More importantly, this work will hopefully serve as an impetus for a continuing examination of oil and other energy resources in order to further develop our understanding of crucial historical issues. * Aleksandra Pomiecko, Europe Now * In his well-researched and carefully crafted study of British and German oil policies from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second, which emerged from a dissertation written under the guidance of David Painter at Georgetown University, Anand Toprani partly resists these temptations while also (intentionally) succumbing to other aspects of them. The result is a valuable study that makes an important contribution to the history of energy and Great Power conflicts in the inter-war period. * Rudiger Graf, German Historical Institute London Bulletin *

Oil and the Great Powers is masterful in its description of the geopolitical threats to autonomy that each nation faced, as well as the influence of commercial actors on diplomacy...Toprani writes well, has an eagle eye for the telling quote or statistic, and vigorously analyzes the major military, diplomatic, and economic issues that shaped German and British policy. Oil and the Great Powers is a significant and sophisticated contribution to the history of oil and diplomacy, and it helps us understand why that natural resource was and remains so indispensable in war and peace. * Christopher Dietrich, Fordham University, H-Diplo Rountable * In his well-researched and carefully crafted study of British and German oil policies from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second, which emerged from a dissertation written under the guidance of David Painter at Georgetown University, Anand Toprani partly resists these temptations while also (intentionally) succumbing to other aspects of them. The result is a valuable study that makes an important contribution to the history of energy and Great Power conflicts in the inter-war period. * Rudiger Graf, German Historical Institute London Bulletin * Anand Toprani's Oil and the Great Powers successfully interlaces scholarship on Germany and Britain during the war with work on oil politics more broadly. In doing so, it shows the value of such integrated histories that complicate yet enrich traditional understandings of key historical and geopolitical events. It stresses how international relations shaped each state's approach to oil and vice versa. More importantly, this work will hopefully serve as an impetus for a continuing examination of oil and other energy resources in order to further develop our understanding of crucial historical issues. * Aleksandra Pomiecko, Europe Now *

Author Information

Anand Toprani is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Policy at the US Naval War College, where he specializes in diplomatic and military history, energy geopolitics, and political economy. He is a graduate of Cornell, Oxford, and Georgetown, and held fellowships at Yale and Harvard. He previously served as an historian with the US Department of State and as an intelligence analyst at US Central Command.

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