OilBooks.com

Oil is the lifeblood of the modern world. Without it, there would be no planes, no plastic, no exotic produce, and a global political landscape few would recognise. Humanity's dependence upon oil looks set to continue for decades to come, but what is it?

This is an excellent primer on oil for people who want to be oil-literate.

Author: Vaclav Smil
Year: 2017

How did our thirst for energy, our technological prowess, and the end of easy oil conspire to make the Deepwater Horizon oil spill likely? This book explains what caused the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, from which it will take decades to recover. For those of us who watched the oil spill from afar, this book provides the technical background to help us understand it, something that was never available from the media.

Authors: Joseph A. Tainter, Tadeusz W. Patzek
Year: 2012

As modern-day muckraker Danny Schechter writes in his new introduction, exclusive to this Cosimo Classics edition: "In this era of financial crisis compounded, and even perhaps enabled, by a dearth of investigative reporting, it is valuable to go back in time to learn from the work of great journalists with the courage to have taken on avaricious corporations and irresponsible business practices.

Author: Ida M. Tarbell
Year: 2009

For looking for a history of horizontal fracturing - i.e. the development of the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that has allowed the oil & gas industry to tap into resources once thought unrecoverable and push U.S. production to historic highs, even after most industry watchers thought the domestic industry was well past its peak - Greg Zuckerman offers a detailed and comprehensive account.

Author: Gregory Zuckerman
Year: 2013