The USA consumes 20 million barrels of oil per day (as at 2003), and much of its foreign policy is devoted to finding the fresh supplies it demands.

Ian Rutledge's book chronicles the rise of America's oil dependency, its political and geological explorations in the Middle East, and some of the science and history of oil itself.

The author, an energy business consultant and economist, makes clear that, although there are alternatives to oil, none is as effective or as efficient.

The statistics alone make much of the book's impact.

The growth and importance of the U.S. automotive industry make the nation's appetite for black gold truly voracious and a source of great concern both to environmentalists, whose interest devolves largely around the volumes of pollutant gases created by the manufacture and use of the family car (and there are three of those for every four Americans) and the doomsayers who have grave misgivings as competing nations (notably the USA and China) start to squabble over dwindling oil reserves. Conservationists too have concerns, with areas such as the 7.6-million-hectare Arctic National Wildlife Refuge newly opened for exploration.

The author first recaps recent history: the evolution of U.S.

society and its dependence on the car; its rivalry with the old imperial powers for influence in the Middle East; and establishing relationships with its American neighbours. The second part of the book deals with more recent alliances and conquests.

This is a story with no happy ending. After voluntary restraint in the '80s, during which small cars accounted for up to 40 per cent of the market, bigger has become better again, and the U.S. is guzzling gas as never before. Ian Rutledge explains why.