A Pipeline Runs Through It

Apr 28, 2025 8:05 PM

Author:Keith Fisher

'Fascinating revelations' Max Hastings, Sunday Times

'Wonderfully detailed and colourful' Steven Poole, Daily Telegraph

'The book I have long been waiting for... Essential reading' Michael Klare

Petroleum has always been used by humans: as an adhesive by Neanderthals, as a waterproofing agent in Noah's Ark and as a weapon during the Crusades. Its eventual extraction from the earth in vast quantities transformed light, heat and power. A Pipeline Runs Through It is a fresh, comprehensive in-depth look at the social, economic, political and geopolitical forces involved in our transition to the modern oil age. It tells an extraordinary origin story, from the pre-industrial history of petroleum through to large-scale production in the mid-nineteenth century and the development of a dominant, fully-fledged oil industry by the early twentieth century.

This was always a story of imperialist violence, political disenfranchisement, economic exploitation and environmental destruction. The near total eradication of the Native Americans of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio has barely been mentioned as a precondition for the emergence of the first industrialised oil region in the United States. Britain's invasion of Upper Burma in 1885 was perhaps the first war fought, at least in part, for access to oil; the growth of Royal Dutch-Shell involved the genocidal subjugation of people of the Dutch East Indies and the exploitation of oil in the Middle East arose seamlessly out of Britain's prior political and military interventions in the region.

Finally, in an entirely new analysis, the book shows how the British navy's increasingly desperate dependence on vulnerable foreign sources of oil may have been a catalytic ingredient in the outbreak of the First World War. The rise of oil has shaped the modern world, and this is the book to understand it.

Reviews

Fascinating revelations ... Fisher has performed a notable service.

—— Max Hastings , Sunday Times

Impressively weighty history ... a wonderfully detailed and colourful book.

—— Steven Poole , Daily Telegraph

Fisher is a diligent and thoughtful guide ... deeply researched and rich in detail ... a valuable contribution to deepening [our] understanding.

—— Ed Crooks , Financial Times

A compelling read, crammed with eyewitness accounts, and an immensely valuable guide to a great and terrible industry.

—— The Economist

Offers a foretaste of almost everything that followed in the later 20th century ... Fisher narrates this hefty history with remarkable restraint.

—— Barnaby Crowcroft , Literary Review

Here, at last, is the book I have long been waiting for: an unsparing, comprehensive, and thoroughly documented history of the global oil industry and its pernicious influence on human society and the planet we inhabit... Essential reading.

—— Michael Klare

A book that offers the reader a clear-eyed analysis of the global history of oil exploration and exploitation ... very deeply researched, wonderfully illuminating, penetrating in its analysis, and written with great verve. It is a gem of a book, a brave book, a book that will become indispensable in this field.

—— Douglas Newton, author of THE DARKEST DAYS

Fisher's extensive research builds upon the foundations of global petroleum histories and then drills deeper to illuminate the intricate contexts of the origins to our oil addiction. A Pipeline Runs Through It is sure to spark some lively debates over the causes and outcomes of petroleum production through the ages.

—— Stephen C. Cote, Ph.D., author of OIL AND NATION

Impressively researched and fun to read, A Pipeline Runs Through It provides our deepest understanding yet of oil's early decades, foreshadowing its rise into a vital strategic commodity that determined the fate of nations in the twentieth century.

—— John V. Bowlus, Lecturer and Researcher at Kadir Has University, Istanbul

Refreshingly personal and moving... This absorbing modern twist on the age-old story of flying the nest, yet yearning for home, will transport you around the globe and back again without leaving your seat

—— Mark Ovenden, author of AIRLINE MAPS and LONDON UNDERGROUND BY DESIGN

I absolutely love the way Mark Vanhoenacker writes about the world; he gives you a whole new way of seeing

—— Jenny Colgan, author of SUNRISE BY THE SEA

An utterly remarkable and original travel book. Like Jan Morris and Pico Iyer, Vanhoenacker weaves memoir and travelogue, using his unusual perch as a pilot to take us on an incredible journey to dozens of cities around the world. Like Italo Calvino, he somehow weaves it all into one, a painfully beautiful cubist city of memory and dreams that rises out of his warm and lyrical prose

—— Andrew Blum, author of TUBES and THE WEATHER MACHINE

A tour de force of descriptive power and honesty; I can think of no other book like this one

—— Tom Zoellner, winner of the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction

Quietly thoughtful without being either self-conscious or -indulgent. Vanhoenacker retains a refreshing sense of good fortune and even amazement that one can step into a cylindrical metal tube and emerge hours later into different air, different sunlight and a different world picture

—— Peter Neville-Hadley , South China Morning Post

Mark Vanhoenacker...weaves an account of this hugely gifted writer's small-town gay boyhood through evocations of the cities around the world he has come to love as an airline pilot

—— Daily Mail, *Books of the Year*

Beautiful, meditative and insightful

—— Shafik Meghji, author of Crossed off the Map: Travels in Bolivia

Few books nowadays truly break new ground but Mark Vanhoenacker succeeds in doing so with Imagine a City. Sensitive, smart and utterly fascinating, I have recommended it to almost everyone I know

—— Caroline Eden, journalist and author of Red Sands: Reportage and Recipes Through Central Asia, from Hinterland to Heartland

Mark Vanhoenacker is more than a British Airways pilot with the soul of a poet - he is without doubt the greatest travel writer since Bruce Chatwin

—— Tony Parsons, award-winning journalist and bestselling author of Your Neighbour’s Wife

You couldn't ask for a more literary pilot to have up at the sharp end of your next flight than Mark Vanhoenacker...[but] flying isn't so front and centre of his book Imagine a City, this time it's about where his flying takes him.

—— Tony Wheeler, author and co-founder of Lonely Planet

A wonderful volume on the whole Apollo program. As a geologist who worked closely with the astronauts and taught them how to photograph the Moon during the Apollo missions, I was amazed at the detail and clarity of these remastered versions Andy has produced, 50 years later. Also impressive is the research to produce such an accurate record. The information along with each photograph helps tell the story of the program in such an immersive way. He really has done a great deal for the legacy of the Apollo program

—— Dr Farouk El-Baz

A handsome volume. . . The digitally restored images in Apollo Remastered bring NASA's moon voyages to life as never before

—— Simon Ings , New Scientist, Best Books of the Year

In Mission Control, imagination pieced together grainy television images, crew voice reports and the flight plan, to portray mission events. Now, for the first time, APOLLO REMASTERED brings the glory of Apollo and the explorers into sharp focus. 50 years later, I can finally look over the shoulder of Mike Collins and Al Bean and see what they saw. I become part of the experience, as if I were a member of the crew.

—— Gene Kranz, Apollo Flight Director

Apollo Remastered is a fine collection of remastered photographs that depicts the real essence of the Apollo program. It brought back many memories of my time during the missions - an incredible book that will surely be enjoyed for many generations to come

—— Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 Commander

Using cutting edge enhancement techniques, Andy Saunders has created the highest quality Apollo photographs ever produced. He's also produced the first ever clear image of the first man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong. It's not surprising that his new book, Apollo Remastered has become a Sunday Times bestseller; showcasing photographs that are literally out of this world

—— ITV News

Read this book (praise for: The Sixth Extinction)

—— Independent

Elizabeth Kolbert's cautionary tale, The Sixth Extinction, offers us a cogent overview of a harrowing biological challenge. The reporting is exceptional, the contextualizing exemplary (praise for: The Sixth Extinction)

—— Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams and Horizon

The Sixth Mass Extinction is the biggest story on Earth, period, and Elizabeth Kolbert tells it with imagination, rigor, deep reporting, and a capacious curiosity about all the wondrous creatures and ecosystems that exist, or have existed, on our planet. The result is an important book full of love and loss (praise for: The Sixth Extinction)

—— David Quammen, author of The Song of the Dodo and Spillover

Fascinating

—— Chris Fitch , Geographical

In Under a White Sky...Elizabeth Kolbert...[combines] curiosity with an acerbic wit to explore humanity's obsession with controlling nature... Kolbert's skill is in presenting compelling stories from the Anthropocene and letting us judge for ourselves

—— James Dacey , Physics World

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