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I was very happy to contribute a review of @GaraviniG's excellent new history of OPEC for an @HDiplo roundtable, published today. Garavini connects anticolonial political history with contemporary climate policy in important and unprecedented ways. THREAD https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/6862974/h-diplo-roundtable-xxii-14-garavini%C2%A0-rise-and-fall-opec-twentieth
The enduring relevance of anticolonial theory & practice for international cooperation today has already been compellingly argued by @AdomGetachew. What Garavini adds is (inter alia) the entwining of the theory & practice of oil conservation with this collective undertaking.
To make a very long story short, the position climate activists in the US and EU find themselves in today - confronting a massive, massively wealthy and powerful oil industry - is *exactly* the position anticolonial activists in oil-producing states found themselves in, in 1945.
For those activists, taking control of their oil away from Western companies was an intergenerational environmental responsibility: a means to stop the draining of a nonrenewable resource, sold cheaply for the benefit of Western consumers. And, not to put too fine a point on it..
THEY SUCCEEDED. Despite a power imbalance in 1945 that made it all but impossible to even envision such a change, it was envisioned. Envisioned, articulated, defended, and implemented. ( @CRWDietrich has also written a fantastic book on this.)
One could speculate as to why the climate movement in the developed world has been slow to recognize it has something to learn from guys like Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo and Abdullah Tariki. But to neglect this history is to give Exxon, BP, Shell et al. way, way too much credit.
They got beat! Humbled. Run out of town, sometimes literally. 'Big Oil' today is a shadow of what it was in the post-WWII era. The anticolonial movement fundamentally transformed the global oil industry. Anyone seeking to do likewise today, should be familiar with that history.
The roundtable includes contributions from great scholars including @gbrew24 and @EnergzdEconomy, an introduction by the singular Bob Vitalis, and a reply by the author. It's not paywalled. I commend it for your consideration. https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/6862974/h-diplo-roundtable-xxii-14-garavini%C2%A0-rise-and-fall-opec-twentieth
