Oil! Paperback - 2023

From the rear cover

"A classic tale of greed and corruption."
--Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness

This masterpiece of realist fiction portrays corruption and greed, as well as a coming-of-age story. The basis for Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 film There Will Be Blood, the saga follows the rise of an oil magnate through the eyes of his loving but increasingly pessimistic son. Against the backdrop of the 1930s working-class and socialist movement, Bunny Ross, son of oil tycoon J. Arnold Ross, battles conflict between his wealthy upbringing and his sympathies for the working class.

After writing The Jungle, a groundbreaking book that exposed harsh labor conditions, novelist Upton Sinclair was inspired by the 1920s Teapot Dome political scandal involving President Warren G. Harding's administration and private oil companies. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall accepted valuable gifts and large sums of money in exchange for allowing oil companies to control government oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.

Delivering a scathing, satirical critique of social injustice during the early years of the California oil boom, Sinclair skewers the budding Hollywood film industry, the birth of radio evangelism, the press, and higher education.