"Was, then, oil power an illusion, or was it a product of a particular constellation of economic, political, and ideological circumstances? Was it a one-time phenomenon, or will it prove to be a recurring fixture of international life? Control of, or at least access to, large sources of oil has long constituted a strategic prize. Of that there can be no doubt. It enables nations to accumulate wealth, to fuel their economies, to produce and sell goods and services, to build, to buy, to move, to acquire and manufacture weapons, to win wars. Yet it is also a prize that can be overvalued. Moreover, the very reality of a world based on oil is coming to be questioned." Epilogue, pg. 783

"There was the matter of the missing $526.08.

"A professor's salary in the 1850s was hardly generous, and in the quest for extra income, Benjamin Silliman, Jr., the son...