| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 179 words from this article are provided below; about 404 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900–1940. By Paul Sabin. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. xxii, 307 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-520-24198-3.)
Paul Sabin's new book, Crude Politics, offers an original and insightful approach to a chapter in the story of one of the world's most important natural resources: petroleum. Between 1900 and 1940, California's efforts to harvest its petroleum bounty did not resemble the period of individual resource extraction seen during the rush for gold a half century earlier; and that observation is a primary component of Sabin's argument: By 1900 the maturation of the nineteenth-century ethic of extraction had moved beyond individuals to also inculcate the American systems of law and government to the point that it could dominate state politics.	1
Sabin's core argument is that the conceptual division between government and market institutions is a false one. For American capitalism, he argues that: "In fact, governments constructed the legal framework for the market" and that by doing so "they enabled market institutions to shift with new developments" (p. 9).	. . .

There are about 404 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.