What The Prize means to me

The Prize is a very interesting book. The three basic themes I got from the book were the how oil has been found and maintained throughout the world, the people who were involved with oil, and how oil has impacted our lives and the lives of many other people throughout history.

The book started off by finding oil in Pennsylvania. Oil was initially used for light, but now is a huge asset to our every day lives. As soon as word was out that oil had been found, the oil industry boomed with people trying to start up businesses and maintain a fortune. Oil kept surfacing in many places throughout the U.S. and eventually many places throughout the world. Many businesses came about as oil was being found. Standard Oil was the biggest player and maintained that position for many years. Oil had to have a way to travel and in the beginning it was by train on the railroads, but eventually it turned to oil tankers used to ship the oil across seas. Texas was a huge success for oil throughout history, but it also caused a lot of conflict between the various oil companies.

Finding oil was something that many people wanted to do in their lives. It meant money and was called "liquid gold." There were many companies throughout history that contributed to the oil boom. The biggest player in history was Standard Oil, and the founder of that was John Rockefeller. Another key player in the Standard Oil business was Walter Teagle. He was head of Standard of New Jersey. He played a huge role throughout the history of oil. Shell was another big player in the oil business. Marcus and Samuel Samuels were the founders of Shell. After awhile Shell merged with Royal Dutch to make Royal Dutch Shell. Henri Deterding was a major player in Royal Dutch Shell. Those are just a few of the major companies in the early years of oil, but oil has certainly come a long way from that. All of these man named were wealthy man from oil and were huge players who basically made oil what it is today.

Without oil our lives would be pretty bland. Oil was first used in lighting and then became used in almost anything we use today. Oil is used in almost all of our every day products and without it we would be lost. Transportation would be much slower. We would be in a dark world. Many of the cleaning products we use would be non-existent unless they were made from something other than oil. Oil is something that many people take for granted and without it we wouldn't be where we are today.

The Prize basically shows how greedy and selfish people can be when something as powerful as oil in put out on the market. Many of the man were manipulative and played "dirty" in the oil industry. It really showed the true colors of many people throughout history. Many of these men were very wealthy and I think they may have taken that for granted sometimes.