The incredible tale of how ambitious oil rivals, Marcus Samuel, Jr. and Henri Deterding, joined forces to topple the Standard Oil empire.
Peter B. Doranis vice president for research at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, D.C., where he leads the center's energy horizons and defense programs.He is the author of the popular "History of Oil" podcast on iTunes. A recognized expert on international affairs and national security, his articles have appeared inForeign Policy, Defense News, National Review,The American Spectator, and theJournal of Energy Security. His analysis and commentary are regularly featured in U.S. and European media, such as Fox News,TheWall Street Journal, andNewsweek. He holds a master's degree from Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies.
“Breaking Rockefeller emulates the best oil literature, in which
geology and geopolitics go hand in hand.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“[Marcus Samuel and Henri Deterding’s] story, though not new,
is grippingly retold in Breaking Rockefeller. . . . The guts, greed
and gusto of this cast of characters are what give the book its
vigor. . . . The book is timely in an era when America’s shale
revolution has upset the OPEC cartel’s efforts to control the
world’s oil markets, and Eastern Europe struggles to free its gas
markets from dependence on Russia’s Gazprom. It is a vivid reminder
of the dangers of monopolies, and of the merits of no-holds barred
competition and technological upheaval.”
—The Economist
“It is the author’s love affair (it can be called nothing less)
with oil itself that most effectively entices the reader to make
her way through these pages. . . . When Doran talks about
[oil], it is with a sensuality of language comparable to that of
the most decadent of gourmets. . . . Peter Doran’s writing
style is lively, accessible and sometimes slightly breathless. Each
one of his chapters ends with a dramatic, almost
apocalyptic-sounding statement that leads neatly to the next one.
It works. Even the most ardent of fossil fuel haters will
find Breaking Rockefeller hard to resist.”
—The Post and Courier
“Why haven’t you heard [Marcus Samuel’s] full story before? Because
his history is more elusive than a shell game: He had all of his
papers and correspondence burned. Now Doran has gathered enough
secondary evidence to tell his tale.”
—The New York Post (a must-read book of the week)
“In Breaking Rockefeller, author and energy expert Peter B.
Doran tells the story of an unlikely partnership that dared to take
on—and take down—Rockefeller. . . . [A] well-researched
history.”
—The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Doran has written a vastly entertaining book.”
—The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“An expansive and engaging overview of the first tumultuous decades
of the oil industry. His vigorous prose and persuasive narrative
manage to capture all of the major players and events of that
industry’s first 50 years . . . I used to tell readers who
want to understand the history of the oil industry to read famed
oil historian Daniel Yergin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The
Prize. I still do. But now I say that they should read
Doran’s Breaking Rockefeller too. It really is a
ripping nonfiction yarn that illuminates the oil industry’s
formative years.”
—Bizmology
“[A] lively history of the early petroleum industry. . . . Doran's
vigorous narrative conveys the drama of the oil industry in its
heroic days, featuring grueling stretches of dry wells followed by
marathon gushers; lurid, greedy oil boomtowns; and the wars,
revolutions, and production gluts that made the business a
roller-coaster. He's also good at untangling the underlying
dynamics of finance, marketing, technology, and transportation. The
result is an entertaining portrait of the oil industry's past and
the business forces that still shape its present.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Doran’s] main accomplishment is his illumination of the saga of
how Marcus Samuel Jr. and Henri Deterding became rivals in the
world oil trade and then, around the turn of the century, found
enough common interest to attack the Standard Oil juggernaut from
Japan, Russia, and elsewhere outside the U.S. . . . A readable
popular history told largely through the actions of swashbuckling
tycoons.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Doran is a gifted writer and storyteller; his first-rate history
and introduction to the petroleum business . . . delivers a
page-turner sure to appeal to economists, historians, political
scientists, and general readers interested in global
economics.”
—Library Journal
“Peter Doran’s Breaking Rockefeller is the best kind of history,
telling great stories, providing fascinating detail, and reflecting
real knowledge. In this story of the origins of the modern oil
industry, there are plenty of lessons for the present too.”
—Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag:
A History and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe
1944–1956
“Peter Doran’s enthralling account of the early days of the oil
industry—particularly the mano-a-mano battle between a Jewish
merchant in England and the original industry titan, John D.
Rockefeller—reads like a thriller without sacrificing good solid
scholarship. With some relevant observations for our own
time, this is a gem of a book.”
—Robert Kagan, New York Times bestselling author of Of
Paradise and Power and The World America Made
“Peter Doran tells a riveting and exciting account of the formation
of Royal Dutch Shell and how it managed to stand up to Standard Oil
at the turn of the 19th century. With color and delight, he has
captured the nature of the oil business at the time in this
well-researched volume.”
—Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
“Breaking Rockefeller is fast-paced yet anchored by a treasure of
fascinating detail. It is an insightful historical backgrounder for
today's global energy politics.”
—Robert D. Kaplan, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American
Security and author of In Europe's Shadow
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