Menu
Idea

petroleum

53
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Front cover of Rendered Obsolete: Energy Culture and the Afterlife of US Whaling.

Underground Whales: An Energy Archaeology

On the history of whaling and how we understand energy consumption.
by Jamie L. Jones via UNC Press Blog on September 13, 2023
Graphic showing a gasoline tank (in green) leaking underground.

The Hidden Cost of Gasoline

Gas stations caused a $20 billion toxic mess — and it’s not going away.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on June 14, 2023

Sea Shanties and the Whale Oil Myth

Oil companies like to point to the demise of the whaling industry as an example of market-based energy solutions. The reality is much more complicated.
by Kate Aronoff via The New Republic on January 22, 2021

How World War I Ushered in the Century of Oil

When the war was over, the developed world had little doubt that a nation’s future standing in the world was predicated on access to oil.
by Brian C. Black via The Conversation on April 3, 2017
President Eisenhower sitting beside President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, September 26, 1960

The Foreign Policy Mistake the U.S. Keeps Repeating in the Middle East

In 2024, the U.S. faces some of the same challenges in the region that it did in 1954.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on August 2, 2024
Still from 'Chinatown' showing Jack Nicholson taking photo.

“Chinatown” at 50, or Seeing Oil Through Cinema

On the 50th anniversary of “Chinatown” and the beginning of the end of petromodernity.
by Michael Rubenstein via Los Angeles Review of Books on July 8, 2024
The 1917 Silent Parade march in New York City protesting antiblack violence.

The Social-gospel Roots of Environmentalism

America's environmental movement has always been moralistic, which has made it bad at weighing tradeoffs. This accounts for its successes and also its failures.
by William A. Murray via National Affairs on March 21, 2024
A herd of caribou walking across a field.
partner

Denying Science to Drill for Oil is a Decades-long Tradition

What the debate about the Arctic Refuge tells us about science denialism.
by Finis Dunaway via Made By History on February 8, 2024
Shot of Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio hugging in Killers of the Flower Moon

Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon Describes the Struggles of the Osage People

Here’s why they are still fighting.
by Greg Palast via The Guardian on October 20, 2023
Still from the film "Killers of the Flower Moon."

The Real History Behind 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

Martin Scorsese's new film revisits the murders of wealthy Osages in Oklahoma in the 1920s
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on October 18, 2023
Image from book cover of "Petroleum and Progress in Iran."

There Will Be War

U.S.-Iranian relations, the interrelationship between Iranian development and the global oil market, and the future of economic warfare.
by Michael Brenes, Gregory Brew via Warfare And Welfare on February 1, 2023
A line of cars waiting their turn at a filling station in Portland, Oregon, 1973.

The Price of Oil

The history of control and decontrol in the oil market.
by Gregory Brew via Phenomenal World on May 25, 2022
Drawing of the oil industry within a crystal ball.

The Mediums Who Helped Kick-Start the Oil Industry

Apparently some people communed with spirits to locate the first underground oil reserves.
by Paul H. Giddens, Jess Romeo, Rochelle Ranieri Zuck via JSTOR Daily on June 18, 2021
Horses standing next to a car.

What Extremely Muscular Horses Teach Us About Climate Change

You can’t understand the history of American energy use without them. A new visual history puts them in context.
by Robinson Meyer via The Atlantic on December 8, 2020
Woman in the doorway of a kitchen.

Abolish Oil

The New Deal's legacies of infrastructure and economic development, and entrenching structural racism, reveal the potential and mistakes to avoid for the Green New Deal.
by Reinhold Martin via Places Journal on June 16, 2020

The United States Overthrew Iran’s Last Democratic Leader

Archival records make clear that the U.S. government was the key actor in the 1953 coup that ousted Mohammad Mosaddeq—not the Iranian clergy.
by Roham Alvandi via Foreign Policy on October 30, 2019

Oral Histories of The 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire

The events of June 1969 have come to define both Cleveland and the river. Some Clevelanders have a different story.
by Rebekkah Rubin via Belt Magazine on June 3, 2019

How the U.S. Weaponized the Border Wall

The borderlands have “been transformed into a vast graveyard of the missing.”
by Greg Grandin via The Intercept on February 10, 2019

How The CIA Overthrew Iran's Democracy In 4 Days

The first episode of NPR's new history podcast tells the story of a 1953 coup that set the stage for US-Middle East relations ever since.
by Lawrence Wu, Michelle Lanz via NPR on February 7, 2019
Artistic photo of factory pollution

Endless Combustion

Three new books examine how the rise of coal, oil, and gas have permanently remade our world.
by Bill McKibben via The Nation on February 6, 2019
A line of prisoners picking cotton in Huntsville, Texas.

The Oil Boom’s Roots in East Texas Cotton Farming

Oil’s rise was as dependent on the old as much as the new. The industry also benefited from changes in agriculture.
by Scot McFarlane via Texas Monthly on November 1, 2017

Oil Barrels Aren't Real Anymore

Once a cask that held crude, the oil barrel is now mostly an economic concept.
by Brian Jacobson via The Atlantic on September 8, 2017

Toxic Legacy: New Boom Highlights Oil’s Hundred-Year Environmental History in West Texas

The ecological history of West Texas challenges the narrative of the region's rugged independence.
by Sarah Stanford-McIntyre via Process: A Blog for American History on May 9, 2017
A surfer carries his oil-coated board.

‘The Ocean Is Boiling’: The Complete Oral History of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill

How the disaster energized the nascent environmental movement and led to a slew of legislative changes.
by Kate Wheeling, Max Ufberg via Pacific Standard on April 18, 2017

Why Are We in the Middle East?

America’s devotion to the Middle East did not make much sense in 2003, Bacevich argues; but it did in 1980, and the reason was oil.
by Richard Beck via n+1 on July 29, 2016
Man reading paper about gas rationing in front of a sign that reads "sorry no gasoline."
partner

1973 – The Year That Changed Everything

The story of the oil shocks of 1973 and how they continue to shape the world we live in today.
via BackStory on January 9, 2015

The Carter Doctrine

Carter’s speech heralded a dramatic shift in foreign policy toward a policy of containment of Soviet influence.
via Voices & Visions on January 23, 1980
Title card for animated film "Destination Earth".

Destination Earth (1956)

A Cold War-era cartoon celebrates the wonders of oil and free-market capitalism, and the overthrow of the Stalin-like leader of Mars.
by John Sutherland via The Public Domain Review on June 1, 1956

When Big Oil Was "The Great Vampire Squid" Wrapped Around America

Robert Engler's award-winning 1955 investigation into the oil industry.
by Robert Engler via The New Republic on August 29, 1955
French Jesuits mapped the Gulf of Mexico, “Golphe da Mexique” in 1672 in an expedition lead by Father Jacques Marquette.

The Gulf of Mexico’s Long History of Colonization and Varying Names

Long before Trump expressed interest in a name change, conquerors have battled to claim the wealth of its rich waters.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on January 13, 2025
View More
30 of
53

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History