A groundbreaking history of oil and it's importance to US politics, finance, militarism and consumerism from an award-winning author and scholar This expansive history traces the hidden connections between oil and capitalism from the late 1800s to the current climate crisis. Beyond simplistic narratives that frame oil as 'prize' or 'curse', Crude Capitalism uncovers the surprising ways that oil is woven into the fabric of our modern world: the rise of an American-centered global order; the breakdown of Empire and anti-colonial rebellion; contemporary finance and US dollar hegemony; debt and militarism; and the emergence of new forms of synthetic consumption. Much more than an energy source or transport fuel, oil has a foundational place in all aspects of contemporary life - no challenge to the fossil fuel industry can be effective without taking this fact seriously. Crude Capitalism maps the varied geographies of oil, including the rise of OPEC, the importance of revolutionary and Post-Soviet Russia, the crucial role of African upstream reserves, and the new petrochemical circuits that link the Middle East, China, and East Asia. The book provides an original and fine-grained empirical analysis of corporate ownership and control, including refining and petrochemicals. By exposing these structures of power and placing oil in capitalism, the book makes an essential contribution to debates around oil-dependency and the struggle for climate justice.

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, University of Kassel (Research Group Entrepreneurship), language: English, abstract: Independent Venture Capital (IVC) has been paramount in the emergence of the information technology industry in both the United States and Europe. There are relatively few large global information technology companies in Europe. A widening gap is observable in the success rate of IVC backed start-ups between the U.S. and Europe in the information technology industry. This difference could be attributable to the differences in the venture capital financing of start-ups in the U.S., UK, Germany and France. This book deals with "Differences in Venture Capital Financing of U.S., UK, German and French Information Technology Start-ups". The comparative analysis is conducted on a microeconomic level (managerial venture capital research), i.e. on the venture capital firm level. The differences are analyzed for the whole venture capital investment cycle: contact phase, initial screening phase, due diligence phase, deal structuring and negotiation phase, management phase — value adding services, and exit phase. The research framework model examines the following differences in the venture capital investment cycle: average size of investment in the seed stage, average size of investment in the start-up stage, aver-age size of investment in the growth stage, percentage of start-ups in pre-revenue phase at time of investment, percentage of start-ups not managed by founders but experienced managers, percentage of investment in start-ups with me-too products, percentage of mar-ket analysis due diligence done informal, typical liquidation preference multiple, percent-age syndicated exits that are outperformers, number of tranches per investment round, number of board seats per partner and the cash multiple X that defines an outperformer. The empirical research work is based on an extensive scientific online questionnaire with VCs in the U.S., UK, Germany and France. Before the online questionnaire was drafted, a preliminary face-to-face expert interview was conducted with 24 VCs in Silicon Valley, London, Paris, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich. The primary data collected in the questionnaire served as basis for quantitative parametric and non-parametric statistical analysis. The book is bespokenly written for decision makers in the venture capital industry in the U.S, UK, Germany and France; all entrepreneurs and professionals who want to under-stand the economics and mechanics of venture capital term sheet clauses; venture capital industry professionals; VC associations