Books about Oil rich from Amazon.com

In The Big Rich, bestselling author and Vanity Fair special correspondent Bryan Burrough chronicles the rise and fall of one of the great economic and political powerhouses of the twentieth century—Texas oil. By weaving together the epic sagas of the industry’s four greatest fortunes, Burrough has produced an enthralling tale of money, family, and power in the American century.

Known in their day as the Big Four, Roy Cullen, H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, and Sid Richardson were all from modest backgrounds, and all became patriarchs of the wealthiest oil families in Texas. As a class they came to be known as the Big Rich, and together they created a new legend in America—the swaggering Texas oilman who owns private islands, sprawling ranches and perhaps a football team or two, and mingles with presidents and Hollywood stars.

The truth more than lives up to the myth. Along with their peers, the Big Four shifted wealth and power in America away from the East Coast, sending three of their state’s native sons to the White House and largely bankrolling the rise of modern conservatism in America. H. L. Hunt became America’s richest man by grabbing Texas’s largest oilfield out from under the nose of the man who found it; he was also a lifelong bigamist. Clint Murchison entertained British royalty on his Mexican hacienda and bet on racehorses—and conducted dirty deals—with J. Edgar Hoover. Roy Cullen, an elementary school dropout, used his millions to revive the hapless Texas GOP. And Sid Richardson, the Big Four’s fun-loving bachelor, was a friend of several presidents, including, most fatefully, Lyndon Johnson.

The Big Four produced offspring who frequently made more headlines, and in some cases more millions, than they did. With few exceptions, however, their fortunes came to an end in a swirl of bitter family feuds, scandals, and bankruptcies, and by the late 1980s, the era of the Big Rich was over. But as Texas native Bryan Burrough reveals in this hugely entertaining account, the profound economic, political, and cultural influence of Texas oil is still keenly felt today..
Price: $18.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Equatorial Guinea is a tiny country roughly the size of Maryland Humid, jungle covered, and rife with unpleasant diseases, natives call it Devil Island. Its president in 2004, Obiang Nguema, had been accused of everything from cannibalism, belief in witchcraft, mass murder, billion-dollar corruption, and terrorism. With so little to recommend it, why in March 2004 was it the target of a group of salty British, South African, and Zimbabwean mercenaries, traveling on an American-registered ex-National Guard plane?

The real motive? Oil.

In The Dogs of War, Frederick Forsyth described a 1972 attempt by mercenaries to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. The chain of events surrounding March 7, 2004 is a rare case of life imitating art--or at least, life imitating a 1970s thriller--in almost uncanny detail. The Wonga Coup is a shocking tale of venality, overarching vanity, and greed whose example speaks to the problems of the entire African continent..
Price: $8.78 [Notify me when price goes down.]

While writing his autobiography, Jean Paul Getty - then perhaps the world's richest man - hoped it would be the final verdict on himself, on his many friends and associates, and on his times. Regrettably, it proved to be so: Getty died in 1976 as "As I See It" was going to press. Now reissued with a number of new illustrations, this autobiography introduces the famed tycoon to a new generation of readers. Known largely for his fabled wealth, J. Paul Getty was highly educated, competent in six languages, a world traveller, and a committed collector of art. Getty describes how he amassed his staggering fortune, discusses the prospects of democracy, lists the seven key points success-oriented men should know about women, and recounts undergraduate conversations at Oxford with his good friend "David", the future King Edward of England. The cast of characters who populate his intimate anecdotes reads like a "Who's Who" of the 20th century: Winston Churchill, Clara Bow, Nelson Rockefeller, Bernard Berenson, Bela Lugosi, Jacqueline Onassis, Richard Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, and hundreds more. He discusses with frankness his several marriages and liaisons and speaks about his notorious stinginess and the often-bizarre problems confronted by the impossibly wealthy..
Price: $7.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Standard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870, it operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations until it was broken up by the United States Supreme Court in 1911. John D. Rockefeller was a founder, chairman and major shareholder, and the company made him a billionaire and eventually the richest man in modern history. This is a look at the history of Standard Oi from its earliest days..
Price: $0.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This underground classic tells the story of oil-rich Azerbaijan's first years of independence from Moscow. Goltz's vivid, personal account, filled with memorable portraits of individuals in high places and low, carries the reader from the battlefront to the oilfield, the voting booth to the negotiating table, always with an astute sense of how it all fits into the geopolitical firmament. In its first years as an independent state, the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan was a prime example of post-Soviet chaos -- beset by coups and civil strife, and losing the Karabakh war of secession, with a fifth of its territory occupied by Armenian troops. Azerbaijan may be endowed with vast oil reserves, but it also bestrides one of the greatest ethnic, religious, and political faultlines in the world. Thomas Goltz became an accidental witness to Azerbaijan's inglorious history-in-the- making when he was detoured into Baku in mid-1991 -- and decided to stay. This record of his years there alternates in style between tragedy and farce. Throughout, the intensity of immediate experience is balanced by an acute awareness of contemporaneous events in Karabakh and Nakhjivan, Georgia and Armenia, Russia and Chechnya, Iran and Turkey, Washington and Houston..
Price: $25.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"TRULY, "thoughts are things," and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches, or other material objects.

A little more than thirty years ago, Edwin C. Barnes discovered how true it is that men really do THINK AND GROW RICH. His discovery did not come about at one sitting. It came little by little, beginning with a BURNING DESIRE to become a business associate of the great Edison.

One of the chief characteristics of Barnes' Desire was that it was definite. He wanted to work with Edison, not for him. Observe, carefully, the description of how he went about translating his DESIRE into reality, and you will have a better understanding of the thirteen principles which lead to riches.".
Price: $0.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]