Oil Empire : Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia

by Frank, Alison Fleig

• ISBN13: 9780674018877
• ISBN10: 0674018877
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Austrian Empire ranked third among the world's oil-producing states (surpassed only by the United States and Russia), and accounted for five percent of global oil production. By 1918, the Central Powers did not have enough oil to maintain a modern military. How and why did the promise of oil fail Galicia (the province producing the oil) and the Empire? In a brilliantly conceived work, Alison Frank traces the interaction of technology, nationalist rhetoric, social tensions, provincial politics, and entrepreneurial vision in shaping the Galician oil industry. She portrays this often overlooked oil boom's transformation of the environment, and its reorientation of religious and social divisions that had defined a previously agrarian population, as surprising alliances among traditional foes sprang up among workers and entrepreneurs, at the workplace, and in the pubs and brothels of new oiltowns. Frank sets this complex story in a context of international finance, technological exchange, and Habsburg history as a sobering counterpoint to traditional modernization narratives. As the oil ran out, the economy, the population, and the environment returned largely to their former state, reminding us that there is nothing ineluctable about the consequences of industrial development.

Author Biography

Alison Fleig Frank is Assistant Professor of History at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Note on Translation	p. xv
Abbreviations	p. xix
Map: The Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1867-1914	p. xxi
Introduction	p. 1
The Land Where Salt and Oil Flowed: Austrian Galicia	p. 24
Galician California: Battles for Land and Mineral Rights	p. 48
Petroleum Fever: Foreign Entrepreneurs and a New National Industry	p. 75
The Boys Don't Sleep at Home: Workers' Dreams of Wealth and Independence	p. 109
Oil City: The Epidemic of Overproduction	p. 140
Blood of the Earth: The Crisis of War	p. 173
A Hotly Disputed Territory: The Struggle for Eastern Galicia	p. 205
Conclusion	p. 237
Data on Oil Production	p. 259
Notes	p. 265
Archival and Primary Sources	p. 319
Index	p. 331
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