Author’s Introduction to the 2011 English Edition
Preface to 2004 edition

1. The Three Pillars of the British Empire

Free Trade and the Sinews of British Power
Britain’s ‘Informal Empire’
The Great Depression of 1873

2. The Lines are Drawn: Germany and the Geopolitics of the Great War

Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder
A Berlin Bank Panic
The Necessity of Ship and Rail Infrastructure

3. A Global Fight for Control of Petroleum Begins

A British Admiral sees beyond lamp oil
D’Arcy captures the secret of the burning rocks
By rail from Berlin to Baghdad
The new Dreadnaughts
Earl Grey’s fateful Paris trip
Fashoda, Witte, Great Projects and Great Mistakes

4. Oil Becomes the Weapon, the Near East the Battleground

A Bankrupt Britain Goes to War
Oil in the Great War
The Secret Eastern War
‘Selling the same horse twice’
Arthur Balfour’s fateful letter to Lord Rothschild
Balfour backs the new concept of Empire

5. Combined & Conflicting Goals: U.S. Rivals Britain

Morgan finances the British war
New York bankers challenge the City of London
England Moves for Oil Supremacy
Churchill and the Arab Bureau
A Battle for Control of Mexico
The secret of British Oil control

6. The Anglo-Americans Close Ranks

A conference in Genoa
Sinclair and the American bid
Germany Tries to Outflank the British
Military Occupation of the Ruhr
The Real Origins of the Weimar Hyperinflation
An Anglo-American Red Line
Deterding, Montagu Norman and Schacht’s ‘Hitler Project’

7. Oil and a New World Order of Bretton Woods

A New Empire rises from the ashes of war
The Dollar Standard, ‘Big Oil’ and New York Banks
Marshall Plan forms postwar oil hegemony
The power of New York Banks tied to U.S. Oil
Mohammed Mossadegh takes on Anglo-American oil
Italy attempts independence in oil and development
Mattei’s bold development initiative

8. A Sterling Crisis and the Adenauer-de Gaulle Threat

Continental Europe emerges from the rubble of war
Anglo-American grand design against Europe
1957: America at the turning point
`That ‘58 Chevy…’
The dollar wars of the 1960’s
The Vietnam option is taken
The beginnings of America’s internal rot
Sterling, the weak link, breaks
De Gaulle is toppled

9. Running the World Economy in Reverse: Who Made the 1970’s Oil Shocks?

Nixon pulls the plug
An unusual meeting in Saltsjoebaden
Kissinger’s Yom Kippur oil shock
The economic impact of the oil shock
Taking the bloom off the ‘nuclear rose’
Developing the Anglo-American green agenda
Population control becomes US ‘national security’

10. Europe, Japan and a Response to the Oil Shock

‘Petrodollar Monetary Order’ devastates the developing world
From Colombo comes a political earthquake
Atoms for Peace becomes a Casus Belli
Gold, dollar crises and dangerous new potentials from Europe
The ‘Crash of 1979’: Iran and Volcker

11. Imposing the New World Order

Paul Volcker borrows a British model
Gunboat diplomacy, and a Mexican initiative
Wall Street replays the 1920’s, IMF-style
Reagan’s chickens come home to roost
‘We’ll get by with a little help from our friends…’
The fall of a wall panics some circles
Saddam: Operation Desert Storm and a New World Order
The target: an independent Europe and Japan

12. From Evil Empire to the Axis of Evil

Finding the new bogeyman
Japan: wounding the lead goose
Phase Two: hunting Asian Tigers
Washington revisits Halford Mackinder
Russia gets IMF third world cure
Yugoslavia gets the shock therapy
U.S. oil geopolitics in the Balkans

13. A New Millennium for Oil Geopolitics

Bush brings big oil back to Washington
‘where the prize ultimately lies…’
‘The New American Century’
From Kabul to Baghdad: war on terror or war on oil?
‘You’ve got to go where the oil is…’
Putin’s Energy Trump Card
Controlling Russia and its energy
Oil and bases—controlling the spigots
‘Full spectrum dominance’

APPENDIX I
Founding members of Trilateral Commission in 1973
APPENDIX II
Some participants at Saltsjoebaden, Sweden meeting of Bilderberg Group on May 11-13 1973