Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary

The thought of kerosene fires at sea was terrifying, but after the first safe delivery to London in 1861, global trade grew rapidly. Europe was oil-hungry for the same reasons as Americans: lighting, industrialization, and urbanization. U.S. consuls eagerly pushed the new "Yankee invention," and helped develop distribution networks. During the 1870s-80s, over half of U.S. oil output was exported, mostly to Europe, with Standard responsible for 90%. Its leadership and other experts doubted that oil would be discovered outside the U.S.

American kerosene found a ready market in Russia in 1862. Ancient sources told of "pillars of fire" in the Caucasus Mountains around Baku, and after Russia annexed the region in the early 19th century, a primitive industry developed there, thwarted by the region's backwardness and isolation, as well as by incompetent czarist administration. Wells were drilled in 1871-...