Eland, director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at The Independent Institute, surveys the history of the struggle to control oil-supplies in the Middle East over the last hundred years, and debunks several myths about oil. The material is divided into four sections; the first is historical and looks mainly at wars, economic organizations and policy on oil. In the second, the author interrogates eleven different claims about everything from peak oil and the circumstances surrounding its extraction and trade. They range from concerns about peak oil to the strategic importance of oil to whether the USA should become independent of oil to the equation of oil with economic and political power. The last two sections argue against using military power to secure oil as imperialistic and offer free-market policy prescriptions. Distributed by Independent Publishers Group. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)