'Dripping with delicious detail' - Aditya Chakrabortty

Taking the reader on a journey through North East Scotland, Merseyside, South Wales, the Thames Estuary and London, this is the story of Britains oil-soaked past, present and future. Travelling the country, the authors discover how the financial power and political muscle of an industry built the culture of a nation from pop music to kitchen appliances, and how companies constructed an empire, extracting the wealth of the world from Iran to Nigeria and Alaska.

Today, the tide seems to be going out Britains refineries have been quietly closed, the North Sea oilfields are declining and wind farms are being built in their place. As the country painfully shifts into its new post-industrial role in the shadow of Covid, Brexit and the climate crisis, many believe the age of oil to be over. But is it?

Speaking to oil company executives and traders, as well as refinery workers, filmmakers and musicians, activists and politicians, the authors put real people at the heart of a compelling story.

List of Maps and Table
List of Tracks
Prologue: The Last Living Rose
PART I: 19401979
1. The Whole World Was Aflame
.2 : The Brightness of the Heavens
3. Baby, You Can Drive My Car
4. Dirt Behind the Daydream
5. Only One Road to Paradise
PART II: 19792008
6. And If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
7. Tuireadh: Lament
8. Suude ne gbo gima de: The Eye of the Blind
9. Local Hero
10. Stanlow
PART III: 20082020
11. This Bitter Earth
12. Rough Trade
13. Nexus of Outrage
14. Heading for Extinction
Epilogue: The Commonwealth of Wind
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index