Oil and Ideology: The Cultural Creation of the American Petroleum Industry

Oil & Ideology: The Cultural Creation of the American Petroleum Industry. By Roger M. Olien and Diana Davids Olien. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. xviii + 305 pp. Notes and index. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $18.95. ISBN: Cloth 0-807-82523-9; paper 0-807-84835-2.

Reviewed by Hugh S. Gorman

In Oil and Ideology, Roger and Diana Olien examine the origins of a widely held perception that large oil companies cannot be trusted and would, if left unchecked, run roughshod over consumers, the environment, and any standards of good practice that they find inconvenient. How, they ask, was this image of the industry created and what effect has it had on public …