On Oil

By (author): Don Gillmor

A journalist, and former roughneck, considers our long, complex, tortured relationship with oil.

Oil has dominated our lives for the last century. It has given us warmth, progress, and life-threatening pollution. It has been a gift and it is now a threat. It has started wars, ended wars, and infiltrated governments—in some cases, effectively become the government. In On Oil, Don Gillmor, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta, looks at how the industry has changed over the decades since. The latest in our Field Notes series, On Oil illustrates the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture, in Canada and elsewhere, and contributed to armed conflict and war across the world. Gillmor considers as well the origin and application of early concerns over global warming and documents what oil companies have done to misdirect conversations about environmentalism and frustrate efforts to create lasting change. The twilight of oil is upon us and it is fighting to survive, even as we are ourselves fight to survive the climate crisis exacerbated by our dependence on it.

AUTHOR

Don Gillmor

Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of three novels, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata, a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, The Walrus, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.


Reviews

Praise for Breaking and Entering

Surely the most interesting midlife crisis of the yearltbr gtMarion Winik Oprah Daily

Gillmor deftly converges doubt infidelity and the fragility of family in a narrative that is both thrilling and relatableltbr gtNew York Times

Hilarious and devastatingltbr gtGlobe and Mail

Powerfully drawn Every aspect of the novel feels trueltbr gtToronto Star

Genius A smart funny and sneakily terrifying version of the way we live now Do not read without working air conditioningltbr gtKirkus Reviews starred review



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Details

Dimensions:

112 Pages
7.75in * 4.25in * .3in
1.00gr

Published:

April 08, 2025

Publisher:

Biblioasis

ISBN:

9781771966672

Language:

eng

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