Look at history as taught at school, and later repeated by documentaries, and even reinforced by the news :



1. The first world war was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

2. Hitler was chosen by the German people.

3. The oil crisis of 1973 was produced by Arabs.

4. The Third World debt crisis of the `80s was produced by Third World leaders spending way too much.

5. The current presence of the US-army in Afghanistan and Iraq has something to do with terrorists hiding over there, weapons of mass destruction, dictators, human rights, democracy, etc. (It's hard to follow what the reasons officially are, since they change continuously.)



Forget it. Briefly summarized, the five above mentioned events are explained by the author to have happened as followed :



1. The first world war was in fact the first *Gulf War*. Germany was a rising economic power, rivaling the British Empire. They were a step away of building a railroad to Baghdad. That would have permitted the German Reich surpassing the British Empire in economic and military power.



2. Hitler was chosen by Wall Street first, before the German people could do likewise. Wall Street thought that it would be easier to have a strong dictator - instead of a democratic government - to put the burden on the people to pay off the reparations debts of the first world war. On top of that, the British Empire thought they could play the German Empire against the Russian Empire, and have them bleed one another to death. Not everything went following the original scenario...



3. After uncoupling the dollar from gold in 1971, a new standard was introduced : the oil standard. But the price of oil was too low. And the dollar was considered by Europe ready for devaluation. Wall Street chose another strategy : lifting the price of oil. Who won by the oil crisis of 1973 ? Everybody lost, except : (1) Exxon, becoming the largest corporation of the US, surpassing General Motors, and (2) the Wall Street banks. (Do you really think some small and military underdeveloped countries could change the world economy in this way without US approval ?)



4. Wall Street became rich with petrodollars, and then went on to lend those dollars to the Third World. Volcker lifted the interest rates in the `80s up to 20 %. The Third World went nearly bankrupt. Remember Mexico 1982. Who is to blame ? Mexico, or Volcker ?



5. Peak oil was the real motive for the US-army taking possession of the second largest oil reserves in the world. 9/11 was the pretext needed to make that happen... A complementary reason is that the US army is now setting up the stage for the next global arms race. By invading Afghanistan, a neighbor of China and Russia, the US is driving up once again the pressure on those countries.



This is a very important book. It radically changed my view of the events of the last century.