The Blood That Keeps The World Turning

The Geopolitics of Oil.

A thorough and fascinating exploration of global history, from the mid-19th century to the present day, which examines the impact of oil (and other hydrocarbons) on politics, economics and international relations.

The Blood That Keeps the World Turning is a wide-ranging, detailed work that takes a novel, unorthodox approach to its subject matter. It is an absorbing account that illuminates the crucial, often underestimated – and at times deliberately obscured – role of the possession and control of energy sources and supply routes.

Golmayo demonstrates the many instances in which multinationals wield far more power than governments. For countries across the world, energy is a matter of national security, whether its supply is in public hands or private, and it is an area in which the intelligence services play a critical –though invariably
unseen– role.

My aim in this book is to bring to light the extent to which hydrocarbons and contemporary history are inextricably linked, in ways we might never have imagined.