Book Reviews

• Author: George W. Stocking
• Published date: 01 September 1974
• Date: 01 September 1974
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X7401900310
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS

623

Gerald D. Nash, United States Oil Policy,

1890-1964,

Pitts-

burgh:

University of Pittsburgh

Press

(1968), 285 pp.,

$7.95.

Professor

Nash presents his story of governmental policy

toward the oil industry in a broad setting. He

treats

it as a

manifestation of the "growth of a

gradual

consensus on the

need

for

business-government cooperation." (vi)

President Theodore Roosevelt first articulated

it

in his

doctrine of the New Nationalism. Although he formulated

it

vaguely, succeeding generations filled in the details

for

the

broad outline

that

Roosevelt sketched.

"The

relationship of

the government to the economy under Wilson's New Freedom,

in the Age of Normalcy of Harding-Coolidge-Hoover, during

Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and

Harry

Truman's

Fair

Deal,

under

Dwight Eisenhower's Modern Republicanism

and

John

F. Kennedy's New Frontier, and in Lyndon B. Johnson's

Great Society followed the paths broadly hewn out by Theo-

dore Roosevelt." (Idem.)

The main purpose of Nash's study is to "analyze

and

de-

scribe the growth of cooperation as a prime characteristic

of public policy in the petroleum industry" (vii)

during

these

political regimes. He consciously avoids concentrating on de-

tails.

"Instead,"

he states,

"I

have attempted to provide an

overview

and

to place specific problems within abroad con-

text

rather

than to analyze them in depth." (viii)

Nash's study has the merits of its-characteristics.

In

pro-

viding abroad perspective within which to relate govern-

mental oil policy, he brings the

training

of the historian fa-

miliar with American political developments.

His

study re-

veals wide research

and

is well documented.

But

it

also

has

the defects of its characteristics.

In

seeing the broad develop-

ments, he frequently overlooks or fails to recognize

their

eco-

nomic significance.

For

example, he notes

that

"even before

the United

States

Supreme Court issued the famous dissolu-

tion decree of 1911,

Standard's

alleged monopoly was rapidly

disintegrating as a result of fierce competition." (7-8)

By

1917