Book Review

Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900–1940. By Paul Sabin. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. xx + 307 pp. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $39.95.
There is a subtle muckraking quality to this book that by itself makes the hardcover price worth it. It has corrupt politicians, partisan judges, conflicts of interest, irate voters, beach defenders, and, of course, Big Oil. Readers in general and Californians in particular will find themselves raising their eyebrows and experiencing "a-ha" moments as they follow Sabin's journey into how California became the embodiment of the petrol-driven state. But that is not the primary point of the book.	1
The idea is to rewind the tape from the more familiar scene of the environmental impact of oil production and consumption (pollution, environmental degradation, global warming) to ask how was it that the oil companies ended up in a position to transform California so radically? The answer Sabin gives is thoroughly convincing. He argues that the standard answers—the free market, supply and demand, and terms we associate with capitalist economics—are incorrect. It was politics that shaped the oil industry. Thus Sabin demonstrates that the underbelly of environmental history is, in fact, hardball politics, the site where groups of humans compete fiercely to protect their interests and impose their vision of the good life. Sabin makes "the invisible hand" appear in all its complexity by identifying four factors as key to the California oil market. The first is the politics of ownership: Who owns the beach, the sand dunes, the very ocean floor? The second factor is the exercise of power: federalism vs. state or municipal authority. Which officials should decide whether drilling on the beach is permissible? The third is regulation and enforcement—or not and why not. The fourth factor analyzed is the politics and financing of highways. "Your tax dollars at work" will never read the same again, as Sabin dissects and critiques user fees, explaining how California became the champion "free"way builder and how the Los Angeles streetcar gave way to the armored-personnel vehicle.	2
The legal and social framework that emerged from each of those hard-fought political battles became the foundation for the entire oil apparatus in California, the good, the bad, and the really ugly. As such, Sabin's study makes for great comparisons in the history of oil: how did Oklahoma and Texas differ? Did the same factors affect the industry in Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria? Indeed, how is the Iraqi oil industry being shaped right now? Sabin's book fits into graduate courses not only on comparative environmental histories of oil and energy regimes, but also in undergraduate California history. Needless to say, it should be required reading in economics classes and business schools.	3
Myrna Santiago is associate professor of history at Saint Mary's College of California, where she teaches Latin American and world history. She is the author of The Ecology of Oil: Environment, Labor, and the Mexican Revolution, 1900–1938.

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