The 4-star review below was posted to Amazon and Goodreads on 5/1/18:

Yetiv’s prose is clunky compared to another good, recent book on oil, Market Madness by Blake Clayton, but Myths of the Oil Boom has the advantage of a broader topic.

Yetiv defines “oil security” as having three aspects: reasonable oil prices, a supply not subject to severe disruptions, and the negative effects of using oil (pollution, terrorism, etc.).

We are in the midst of a big oil boom: American oil production rose roughly 50% in 5 years (to close to 10% of daily global oil consumption).

Myths:
• America’s oil boom will substantially lower prices
• Saudi Arabia is an OPEC oil price dove
• US presidents can influence oil and gasoline prices
• More American oil means less Persian Gulf intervention
• Oil supply disruptions are really threatening
• America’s oil consumption is only a drag
• Gasoline costs what you pay at the pump
• The US oil boom should erase peak oil concerns

Some are new, e.g., Saudi Arabia shift away from being a price dove.

More American oil comes from America (~40%), then Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Venezuela. I.e., the US imports more oil from Latin America than from the Middle East, and Canada supplies America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. China, on the other hand, imports more oil from the Persian Gulf than the US does.

Yetiv provides a good summary of the role of oil in drawing us into Middle East politics. Yetiv sees our involvement as largely effective, noting that “none of the major oil crises and price shocks in the past 40 years have occurred when American capability has been predominant in the Gulf.” Yetiv is also smart enough to understand our interests in the Middle East go well beyond oil.

All of this is in service of his promotion of decreased oil consumption. How he expects that to happen when oil prices continue to rise at less than the rate of inflation he doesn’t say (oil prices rise at higher than the rate of inflation is one myth he doesn’t address.

Disclosure: I received an advance copy of Myths of the Oil Boom via NetGalley.