Anointed With Oil: God and Black Gold in America's Century

FAIN: FZ-250607-17

Darren Dochuk
University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)

A history of the connections between religion and the petroleum industry in the U.S., from the “King of Crude” Patillo Higgins in the 1890s to the Rockefeller and Pew families in the energy crisis of the 1970s to the current era of globalization.

This project examines the subtle but critical relationship between petroleum and religion in the twentieth century, with focus on the United States, its oil-patch regions, and their change over time, but also on the expansion of American oil-patch interests and influences abroad. Blending cultural, political, and economic history, it details and assesses how those living in oil-rich zones have always considered petroleum their special providence, a fragile gift bestowed by God to be used industriously for the advance of “His Kingdom.” Driven by sacred notions of production, stewardship, and dominion over the earth, they have long found a natural ally in the petroleum business, which has grafted these ideals onto an ideology of high-risk, high-reward wildcat entrepreneurialism. This marriage has spawned structures of power with sweeping impact, domestically and globally, and transformed American religion, politics, and culture in profound and lasting ways.

Associated Products

Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America (Book)
Title: Anointed With Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America
Author: Darren Dochuk
Abstract: Anointed with Oil is a groundbreaking new history of the United States that places religion and oil at the center of American history. As prize-winning historian Darren Dochuk reveals, from the earliest discovery of oil in America during the Civil War, citizens saw oil as the nation's special blessing and its peculiar burden, the source of its prophetic mission in the world. Over the century that followed and down to the present day, the oil industry's leaders and its ordinary workers together fundamentally transformed American religion, business, and politics--boosting America's ascent as the preeminent global power, giving shape to modern evangelical Christianity, fueling the rise of the Republican Right, and setting the terms for today's political and environmental debates. Ranging from the Civil War to the present, from West Texas to Saudi Arabia to the Alberta Tar Sands, and from oil-patch boomtowns to the White House, this is a sweeping, magisterial book that transforms how we understand our nation's history.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/title/anointed-with-oil-how-christianity-and-crude-made-modern-america/oclc/1051137743&referer=brief_results
Primary URL Description: worldcat.org
Secondary URL: https://www.amazon.com/Anointed-Oil-Christianity-Modern-America/dp/0465060862/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1541516540&sr=1-2
Secondary URL Description: Amazon.com
Publisher: Basic Books
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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