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.
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