Crude Ambition: This is the story of power

The Cold War is over, oil is cheap, and everyone thinks energy crises are history. Then at 2 a.m. on August 2nd, 1990, a hundred thousand Iraqi troops roll into Kuwait and shatter the illusion. This is the episode where Saddam Hussein gambles on anne... more

Saudi Arabia has had enough. This is the episode where the kingdom's oil revenues collapse from $119 billion to $26 billion, quota cheating tears OPEC apart, and the Saudis finally stop propping up the price and threaten to flood the market. Episode ... more

The greatest oil boom in history ends with a billion-dollar shale project killed overnight and Colorado ghost towns sprouting weeds. This is the episode where the fever of thirty-four-dollar oil gives way to glut, conservation proves more powerful th... more

"We're going down" are the last words from inside the American embassy before the line goes dead. This is the episode where Iranian militants storm the compound, take fifty Americans hostage for 444 days, and the second oil shock spirals into full-bl... more

A single newspaper article mocking an exiled cleric sets Iran on fire. This is the episode where Ayatollah Khomeini's followers turn mourning into revolution, the Shah's regime crumbles in a relentless cycle of protest and bloodshed, and American int... more

Cheap oil is dead, and the industrial world has to figure out how to survive without it. This is the episode where Japan reinvents its entire economy around conservation, France sends inspectors with thermometers into banks and offices to enforce tem... more

A building in Vienna quietly changes its nickname from "the Texaco Building" to "the OPEC Building," and that says everything. This is the episode where the oil exporters go from bit players to masters of the global economy, petroleum earnings explod... more

The embargo hits and the world loses its mind. This is the episode where oil prices explode 600 percent, panicked buyers bid against each other like their survival depends on it, and the age of cheap energy dies in a matter of weeks. Episode 30 of Cr... more