Oil! by Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair's searing indictment of fossil fuels that predicts our current warming planet while imagining a greener and more inclusive future

A Penguin Classic

Perhaps most well-known today as the inspiration for Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will Be Blood , Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! burst into the literary limelight amid soaring petroleum profits and gaping inequalities in 1927. By turns an ardent family saga, scintillating potboiler, and anti-capitalist tirade, Oil! ranks among the most important critiques of fossil energy ever printed; and while anticipating how fossil fuels have shaped the dilemmas of our present, it also looks toward a greener, more inclusive, and altogether more livable world yet to come. This edition features a contextual introduction by Michael Tondre that illuminates the novel’s urgent timeliness in our warming world.