The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power

Surprise - just about everything you ever knew about oil and power is wrong.

This terrific documentary based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book presents an incredibly incisive and insightful story based one on bold premise:

All wars and world economy since WWI has been driven by the need to control access to oil.

From Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, to Hitler opening a second front on Russia (muchless the recent Middle East wars), the startling fact is oil has been an underlying motivation for war and economic power struggles.

Loaded with detail, trivia, history and hard-fact reportage.

Don't miss this one - once seen, you'll never look at oil, power and history in the same perspective again. Outstanding.

A excellent book and series for people to get a good sketch of the modern history of the petroleum industry. Extremely well written book and series. Wonderful narration by Sutherland.

If you have been wanting to watch a documentary that covers the global history of the oil business, from its origins in the hills of Pennsylvania and Ohio, up to its role in the Middle East, Europe, Indonesia, and elsewhere, then this is what you want to watch. There are profiles of some of the leading characters in the business, and chats with some contemporary oil men. Not a lot of historians or analysts were consulted, this all comes from the excellent work of Daniel Yergin, whose book the series is based on, and he is interviewed quite a bit.

This was released in 1992, so naturally some of it is outdated, especially the final section, which looks forward and speculates about the future. Well, Russia did not become the next Middle East, in terms of it being exploited by international oil companies and so forth. But the historical sections are as fascinating as ever, and they are very well illustrated with historical video and shots of derricks and other oil equipment. Yergin wrote another book that analyzed the global energy industry; that too is now past its prime, but "The Prize" is still essential reading and viewing.