Oil policy in the Caspian region-4

The book by Marina Judenich is devoted to the events that Daniel Ergin ignored in his work. As other researchers she considers the end of the 20th century to be the epoch of fighting for oil. This was the time hen countries and their peoples found themselves at the verge of energy collapse. A severe war has started in the Near East. The word's superpower, the Soviet Union disintegrated. The oil-reach countries of the Post-Soviet abroad became a new center of political and economic activity. However it was not only the period of development, but also of corruption, different provocations and even coup d'etat attempts. The former republics of the USSR were do decide whether to remain independent or to became a  resource appendage  of the highly industrialized countries. These issues are what the author, once  a Head of Information Department of the Administration of the President, was trying to clear up.

The book by Bob Tippee "Where's the Shortage? A Nontechnical Guide to Petroleum Economics" may help to understand the processes taking place in the oil market. The author studies the factors effecting demand and supply, unveils the mechanisms of the oil market. According to Bob Tippee, the oil make is the most internationalized part of the world's market. Even though the book is devoted to the processes typical for the USA, it may be useful to understand the situation in the oil market of the other countries. The experience of the USA is interesting since the principles of oil economy are quite the same everywhere. That's a book of a journalist, who devoted his life to the oil business, a book written under the impression of the author's trips to Latin America, Europe and the Near East.

The book by Jeremy Rifkin "The Hidrogen Economy: The Creation of the World-Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth" is to devoted to one of the greatest problems of the present day humanity - the issue of reduction of the world's oil supply and the necessity to replace oil by other source of energy. Unlike the optimists, who do not believe in the global energy crisis, J. Rifkin calls upon small and big business to initiate an energy revolution. He disproves the myth that oil is always found when necessary and that in any case scientists will find some way to avoid the crisis.

Just as it was in the time of the Roman Empire the mankind today is on its furcation and may choose any way. Some of these ways leads to wellbeing and some - to a catasrophy.

According to J. Rifkin, the oil corporations are nowadays so mush oversized that they are almost unable to run their business sufficiently enough and cannot modernize their production. That is way the future belongs to those medium-sized energy companies that will start to use new technologies. However, Rifkin's work has its own shortcomings. E. g., the author focuses on the global problems and sometimes pay no attention to important details. The book touches upon the problem but doesn't offer any possible way out, which is a general disadvantage of works devoted to the coming energy crisis.

Clare Boothe Luce has once said that the difference between the pessimist and optimist is in the fact that the first is most often better informed. This quotation is an epigraph to the book by Eric Laurent, named "La face cachee du petrole". The author is an out-standing French researcher. Laurent comes to a conclusion that oil factor is now dominating the world's politics, econoy and international relations; oil is a key to understanding the history of the 20th century.

Due to studying the oil factor in the world's politics the author comes to understanding the background of the First and The second World Wars and the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The book proves that the oil of Baku played an important role in the victory over the Nazi.

Ismail Agakishiev