Oil and American Identity
Subtitle: A Culture of Dependency and Its Impact on US Foreign Policy
Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company, Limited
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9781784531492
Subjects: Energy policy, united states; Petroleum industry and trade, united states; United states, foreign relations, middle east; Middle east, foreign relations, united states
Description: "American dependence on foreign oil has long been described as a serious threat to U.S. national security, and continues to be a political flashpoint even as domestic fracking eases the US' reliance on imported energy. Oil and American Identity offers a fresh perspective on the subject by reframing 'energy dependency' as a cultural discourse with intimate connections to American views on independence, freedom, consumption, abundance, progress and American exceptionalism. Through a detailed reading of primary literature, Sebastian Herbstreuth also shows how the dangers of foreign oil are linked to American descriptions of foreign oil producers as culturally different und thus 'undependable'. Herbstreuth shows how even reliable imports from the Middle East are portrayed as dangerous and undesirable because this region is particularly 'foreign' from an American point of view, while oil from friendly countries like Canada is cast as a benign form of energy trade. Oil and American Identity rewrites the history of U.S. foreign oil dependence as a cultural history of the United States in the 20th century."--Bloomsbury Publishing.