Published in 1927, Oil is written in the context of the Teapot Dome Scandal, during which oil reserved for emergency use by the US Navy is leased to to Sinclair Oil without competitive bidding. At the same time, Naval oil reserves in California were leased to Pan American Petroleum in exchange for personal, no interest loans, benefitting New Mexico Republican Senator Albert B. Fall. So, while the leases were legal, the exchange of money was not.
As you read the book (and I hope that you will), it will become painfully apparent that the more things change, the more they remain the same. In 1927, Teapot Dome garnered little public interest, but that changed when The Depression hit.
The movie traces a robber baron's quest for power, and while it is inspired by Oil, it is not a retelling or adaptation of Sinclair's book. The themes, however, are similar. It is, essentially, how big business rapes the land and cheats workers to achieve wealth and power. And that, of course, is at the heart of what Sinclair wrote about. It is also about the willingness of government to cater to the needs of big business at the expense of everyone and everything else. Does any of this sound familiar?
Eighty years after Oil's publication, natural resources, religion and patriotism are woven together to maintain a war that benefits only those businesses that have a stake in ongoing hostilities. Although Sinclair was hopelessly naive about Communism, he created a sprawling novel that right exposes the failings of Capitalism. But in 1927, he wrote about issues that continue to bother us: the monopolization of industry, corporate greed, propaganda, sexual double standards and religion. The downside is, he needed 500 pages to tell his story.
