Summary of Rachel Maddow's Blowout

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The oil industry was the result of a big bang that occurred in 1859 when Edwin Drake and his hired man, Uncle Billy Smith, pulled the equivalent of maybe twenty forty-two-gallon barrels of crude oil from the ground on a good day. The first commercially viable gas-powered engine, and the ensuing addiction, were still a few generations away.

#2 By 1875, Rockefeller had taken control of every major refining center in the country. His company, Standard Oil, shipped a million barrels of refined oil in a single year. The most widely used lighting oil at the time, which was struck from soft coal, was dirty; kerosene from petroleum was just the thing to illuminate the clean, bright new future.

#3 The Big Trust was a term used in the nineteenth century to describe monopoly, and the most powerful trust was the Rockefeller-controlled Oil Trust. John D. Rockefeller was the richest and most powerful commodity producer on the continent.

#4 The most common explanation for Rockefeller’s success was that he was just following the rules of his time. The boundaries of capitalism and democracy in America were still being drawn, and the rules of the game still being written.

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