Teapot Dome: Oil and the Scandal That Will Not Die

• Author: Oliver Houck
• Pages: 106-110

106 Best of the Books: Ref‌lections on Recent Literature

Teapot Dome:

Oil and the Scandal

That Will Not Die

By Oliver Houck

The Teapot Dome Scandal: How B ig Oil Bought the Hard ing

White House and Tried to Steal the Cou ntry, by Layton McCart ney.

Random House. 384 pa ges.

From the November/ December 2009 issue of The Environ mental Forum.

Of all t he impulses that have driven

development of the modern world,

none compares with the quest for oil.

e most powerfu l nations of their day com-

mitted ships, armies, and treasure to bring

home sh, salt, dyes, spices, wha le oil, gold,

drugs and slaves, but not one of them trans-

formed their times as petroleum has ours. Of

the ten most protable corporations in the

world, six are in the oil business and their

leader, Exxon-Mobil, has a larger budget than

90 percent of the nations on earth. Crop pro-

duction, GDP, all of the commonly used—if

deceptive—measures of national well-being

correlate to oil production, jot for jot. As do

widespread environmental damage and politi-

cal corruption. ese are the two faces of Janus wherever oil is found.

e Bible on the oil business is Daniel Yergin’s e Prize. Published nearly

20 years ago, it is a tour-de-force of the personalities, deal making, politics,

and brute force that have marked t he rise of this extraordinary enterprise.

Now comes L ayton McCartney’s e Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil

Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country to focus on

one historical incident that forever ma rked this industry and its public per-

ception in the United States. It is an ex traordinary book for the detai l and