Then it had been the Texas Railroad Commission system in the United States and the majors in the rest of the world. Yergin writes, “Once it had been Standard Oil that had set the price. In times of oil crises, Yergin argues, the markets eventually “adjust and allocate.” Early development of the system of oil pricing was a step toward forming the present day futures markets. Yergin cites the contributions of innovation, strong entrepreneurial skills, and productivity.

The text is considered a significant entry into the overall body of literature pertaining to business history. He speaks of the role oil has played in times of war and how the structure of the oil industry is in a state of constant flux. This occured in Pennsylvania and carried out by Colonel Edwin Drake in 1859. He goes back to the first oil well ever drilled.

In The Prize, Yergin considers oil from political, economic, societal, and geographic (or geostrategic) perspectives. Oil is a key driving force behind the worldwide economy and the most important natural resource of the twentieth century. Widely considered to be the definitive history of the oil industry, the book won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. This nonfiction work was released just months after Saddam Hussein’s order that Kuwait be invaded in a quest for oil, and a month prior to the United States entering the Gulf War in an attempt to remove Iraqi troops from Kuwait. The historical narrative begins in the 1850s and continues through 1990. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power by Daniel Yergin is an examination of the global petroleum industry.

The prize quest for oil money and power