Behind the headlines are the crushing rivalries between men and women exploring for oil five miles beneath the sea, battling for control of the world’s biggest corporations and gambling billions of dollars twenty-four hours every day on oil prices.



‘The Squeeze’ is an invaluable account of the modern oil industry and vital to understanding the awful truth about the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. With unprecedented access to their engineers and executives in London and Houston, Tom Bower tells the inside story of BP's history of alleged negligence.Over the last 20 years, oil prices have soared from $7 a barrel to $147 and down to $37. Amid economic boom and bust, speculators, traders, politicians and monarchs have plotted to earn fortunes from oil, and prayed for salvation from unpredictable natural and man-made disasters.