Oil! : a novel

Sinclair's 1927 novel did for California's oil industry what "The Jungle" did for Chicago's meat-packing factories. In "Oil!" Upton Sinclair fashioned a novel out of the oil scandals of the Harding administration, providing in the process a detailed picture of the development of the oil industry in Southern California. Bribery of public officials, class warfare, and international rivalry over oil production are the context for Sinclair's story of a genial independent oil developer and his son, whose sympathy with the oilfield workers and socialist organizers fuels a running debate with his father. Senators, small investors, oil magnates, a Hollywood film star, and a crusading evangelist people the pages of this lively novel. "Oil has been struck in Southern California. Soon the landscape is carved up as the drilling begins. One man stands to profit from it - Mr. J. Arnold Ross, a kindly tycoon who gets rich by buying up land cheap and bribing public officials to get the work done quickly." "But this brings him into conflict with his beloved son, Bunny whose growing sympathy with oilfield workers and socialist organizers fuels a running debate with his father. Meanwhile Bunny's childhood friend, Paul, has become involved in the unions, leading to a fateful clash with capitalist forces." "Peopled by diverse characters from strike leaders to politicians, evangelist preachers to Hollywood starlets, the very rich to the very poor, Oil! is a humorous and compelling story of corruption and class warfare, idealism and friendship."--Jacket Terwijl een oliemagnaat in het Californië van de jaren '20 van de 20e eeuw zijn rijk uitbreidt door arme boeren uit te kopen, kiest zijn zoon onder invloed van een charismatische communistische vriend de kant van de arbeiders. NL-ZmNBD