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Reviews This book provides a richly detailed “road
map” for anyone who wants to understand the past and present
of the Canadian oil and gas industry. The key features and the historical
markers are all identified, as are their relative locations and
the routes linking them together. By making it a pleasurable read,
from beginning to end, Earle has ensured that this map will be accessible
to many people who would avoid a drier tome. Once they have the
big picture in their minds, some may be inspired to dig deeper,
and the bibliography suggests many possibilities for doing so. The first edition of The Great Canadian Oil
Patch was an indispensable reference book for three decades
and readable to boot—and now the second edition is bigger,
better and bound to have an even longer shelf life. Unparalleled in its coverage of the history of
the Canadian oil industry, in the quality of research, and a writing
style that won't let you put the book down. After luring us from
page to page with his insights to events and remarkable people,
Earle Gray satisfies our appetite with the four lessons history
should have taught us. Earle Gray has a unique capacity to write a comprehensive
and comprehensible work on the Canadian oil and gas sector, and
his second edition is even better than the first. Earle Gray has converted an encyclopedic knowledge
of Canada's oil and gas business, an eye for engaging detail and
renowned gifts as a story-teller into a book on an industry that
transformed Canada's twentieth century more than any other. To Gray,
The Great Canadian Oil Patch stretches far beyond Alberta
to roots in western Ontario, a present in the Arctic, and a future
limited only by the human imagination. This is a book that should
have rivalled Pierre Berton's National Dream. |
