The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is one of the most recognizable acronyms among international organizations. It is mainly associated with the 'oil shock' of 1973 when prices of petroleum quadrupled and industrialized countries and consumers were forced to face the limits of their development model. This is the first history of OPEC and of its members written by a professional historian. It carries the reader from the formation of the first petrostate in the world, Venezuela in the late 1920s, to the global ascent of petrostates and OPEC during the 1970s, to their crisis in the late-1980s and early- 1990s. Formed in 1960, OPEC was the first international organization of the Global South. It was perceived as acting as the economic 'spearhead' of the Global South and acquired a role that went far beyond the realm of oil politics. Petrostates such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran were (and continue to be) key regional actors, and their enduring cooperation, defying wide political and cultural differences and even wars, speaks to the centrality of natural resources in the history of the twentieth century, and to the underlying conflict between producers and consumers of these natural resources.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1: Fifty-Fifty 2: OPEC 3: Petromodernization 4: The Energy Crisis 5: The Oil Revolution 6: Uneasy Dialogue 7: The Failed Cartel Epilogue: The Crisis of the Petrostate

About the Author :
Giuliano Garavini teaches International History at Roma Tre University in Rome. His main research interests include European integration, decolonization, and global struggles over natural resources. He has taught classes at various universities and institutions, including the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the European University Institute in Florence, and NYU Abu Dhabi. He has published on the interconnection between European integration and decolonization (After Empires, 2012), and on the global history of petroleum and of energy, in particular on the origins and significance of the 1973 'oil shock' (Oil Shock: The 1973 Crisis and its Economic Legacy, 2016) and on the 'counter-shock' in 1986 (Counter-Shock: The Oil Counter-Revolution of the 1980s, 2018).

Review :
This point, however, only underscores the richness of Garavini's book; it delivers even more than it claims to offer. Garavini does not deny that oil and the wealth derived from it have sometimes facilitated destructive decisions by the members of OPEC. But he balances this common narrative of dysfunctional petrostates with a well-researched and -reasoned historical account demonstrating that petrostates have also been unsung champions of redressing global economic inequality and environmental degradation. The Rise and Fall of OPEC is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the global impacts of oil and the role of the Global South in shaping its use during the twentieth century. Garavini's rich history starts with the emergence of petroleum-producing countries in the 1920s and covers the establishment of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in the 1960s, the oil shocks of the 1970s, and OPEC's declining ability to control prices in the 1980s and 1990s ... Although Garavini's account ends at the turn of the twenty-first century, many of the themes he sounds are strikingly contemporary: tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia, dysfunction in Venezuela, and the need for oil-producing and oil-consuming countries to think about the coming transition to a global economy that no longer relies on fossil fuels. Despite the international importance that it achieved, especially in the 1970s, the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OEPC) has been relatively neglected in terms of serious scholarship. Giuliano Garavini's monumental study goes a long way to rectify this omission ... Garavini has provided a highly readable account that will be of interest not merely to economic historians but also scholars of diplomacy and international relations. offers a refreshing account of an organization that has managed to adapt to radically. Based on extensive multilingual research, including sources that were previously inaccessible to historians, this book is the best history of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) yet published. a well-needed and important contribution to the growing body of literature on the history of oil and energy that aims to transcend the confines of an American and European perspective. It is rare to see a book on oil history that takes on the challenge of developing a truly global analysis while at the same time going into local depth when it comes to the oil histories of individual countries. The author traces the history and influence of OPEC from its for-mation to its downfall in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Rise and Fall of OPEC is a masterful book that contradicts the well-worn but essentialist understandings of oil as the root of authoritarianism, Middle East wars or environmental catastrophe. Garavini does much more than simply set the record straight. He reorients our view of the international organization away from the overblown and exaggerated accounts of oil-weapon-wielding-sovereigns holding the West hostage. Garavini's book is more than a history of OPEC, "one of the most recognizable acronyms in the world" (9). It aspires to be a global history of oil's role in shaping the twentieth century. The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century is an outstanding contribution to the international history of the twentieth century and deserves a wide audience. This is not just a book about oil markets, the economy, and the oil industry. Scholars of energy and geopolitics will find a succinct and focused analysis of the development of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 'petrostates,' the organization itself and the role it played the economic and political development of the twentieth century. The thesis of The Rise and Fall of OPEC is that the international cooperation among petrostates has constituted one of the most powerful drivers of the international history of the 20th Century No book about oil and the world economy has had more of an impact than Daniel Yergin's 1990 masterpiece The Prize [...] It may not get its own miniseries, but Giuliano Garavini's Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century is no less groundbreaking for its subject. Garavini has made an important contribution to the history of the oil resource ... The author's courage to pursue a large number of actors over a long period of time leads to a complex narrative that will be the reference to OPEC's history for the foreseeable future... ... a unique look into the organisation's internal decision-making... detailed and carefully researched book... a corrective to western-centric accounts of the organisation and an essential read for those trying to understand the forces that built the modern energy world and the Middle East... also a reminder that tacticians and strategists of a high calibre will be needed to lead Opec into its seventh decade. ... a welcome addition to the literature ...[Garavini] leverages the previously unavailable minutes of OPEC conferences ... as well as his deep expertise about and clear passion for the subject, to pen a fresh account, full of enduring lessons for today, of the history of the world's most prolific oil organizations ... Vital reading for historians of oil and anyone interested in political economy or the Middle East.