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The Coming Oil Crisis, by COLIN J. CAMPBELL, (UK: Petroconsultants, in association with Multi-Science Publishing Co. Ltd., 1997), 210 pages. ISBN 0906522110.
In all honesty, Colin Campbell and I have been carrying out a debate on the nature of oil supply for several years, and as much as I shall try to be objective, this review should be considered in that context. Also, in response to the almost certain question why review a 1997 book in 2001? the publisher is mounting a new publicity campaign-rather logically seeking to exploit the recent oil price strength-and so The Energy Journal sought a reviewer.
The primary problem with this book is that it is almost completely unanalytical.' The book includes ruminations on the author's career, one biography and ten interviews (including of a Norwegian cardiologist), a history of the industry, as well as of three companies, and it contains several pages of graphics about "sustainable man" (a section which opens with an image of Christ on the cross and the subtitle "He began to worry about the future") "industrial man" and so forth. More usefully, there are several introductory chapters on the...