Publisher's Synopsis
A biographical history of the French oil industry, one of the most influential and infamous industries in Africa, told from the perspective of the men who created it. How old is the French oil industry? Who founded it? Who ruled it? Going back to old family firms that drilled and distilled petroleum in the late Middle Ages, this book follows the rise of a new breed of state engineers, educated at the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, who became members of a state administrative elite.
