On Oil by Don Gillmor

On Oil by Don Gillmor

A Finalist for the 2026 Writers' Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing

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 is now a threat. It has started wars, ended wars, and infiltrated governments--in some cases, effectively become the government. And now oil's enduring mythology is facing a messy, complicated twilight.

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 and 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 documents the myriad ways that oil companies have misdirected environmental action and misinformed the public about climate concerns and illuminates where we went wrong--and how we might yet change course.

EVERETTE E. DENNIS is Executive Director of the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University and Editor-in-Chief of the Gannett Center Journal. He is author or editor of more than a dozen books including The Cost of Libel, Reshaping the Media, Understanding Mass Communication, and the First Amendment. He has also written more than 80 articles in professional journals, law reviews, and industry publications and is frequently quoted in the popular media about communication issues.

DONALD M. GILLMOR is Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication and Director, Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He wrote or edited Free Press and Trial, Mass Communication Law, Enduring Issues in Mass Communication and Justice Hugo Black and the First Amendment. Gillmor has also written numerous book chapters and articles published in Journalism Quarterly, Journal of Media Law and Practice, Media Information Australia, Current History, and law reviews.

THEODORE L. GLASSER is on the faculty of the Institute for Communication Research at Stanford University and Associate Director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota. His articles have appeared in a variety of academic and professional publications, including Journalism Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Communication, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, Communications and the Law, Policy Sciences, Nieman Reports, and The Quill.