This fascinating volume is the outcome of a meeting jointly convened by the Geological Society’s Petroleum and History of Geology Groups, together with the Petroleum History Institute of North America. It offers an insightful set of papers with a mix of technical, commercial and regional perspectives complemented by a fascinating biographically focussed final section on some of Europe’s early petroleum geologists whose work has influenced and shaped the upstream industry.

Jonathan Craig and his editorial team should be congratulated on putting together a diverse set of papers that offer an insight into the history of this important aspect of our industrial heritage. It is a weighty tome of almost 500 pages. Some papers are a little dense and whilst being well written and readable, could have been improved using more illustrations and photographs to illustrate key points. The editors opening paper offers an excellent overview and summary, as well as an introduction to the volume. Knowing a little about the UK and North Sea, I found the early papers well written and informative. They also serve to remind the reader of the influence and impact that James ‘Parafin’ Young had on the wider industry beyond the UK. I was a little disappointed that the Netherlands Groningen Field receives little mention, given its significance and role in opening the Southern Gas Basin and through that, the rest of the North Sea.

The papers on the Italian oil and gas industry are standouts, being easy to read, interesting and well-illustrated. The quality of these and their illustrations, draws further attention to a sense that in some other papers more could have been made by accessing extensive illustrations, photographs and figures held in corporate and other archives; this would have, in my opinion, added further to the volume. One offer that I think would have enhanced the publication is an overview of the history and evolution of the North Sea basin, particularly if offered from a technology perspective, given that this has been one of the most significant and influential hydrocarbon provinces of the late twentieth century to recent years.

Overall this is an excellent volume, particularly for those of us interested in the history and evolution of an industry that has so much shaped and influenced our lives and society. It offers excellent insight and is an informative read that I recommend. It is good to see the Geological Society putting together such a special publication.

Those of us in the United States are usually not well acquainted with the international side of the history of the oil and gas industry for several reasons, not the least of which is the language barrier, for often the sources are not in English. This book goes a long way to solving that problem as it provides a good overview, in English, of this history across the entire region, from the United Kingdom to Russia, with many stops in between. This volume grew out of the European Oil and Gas Industry Conference held in London March 2016.

The volume begins with an overview of the European oil and gas industry from the 1600s to the 2000s prepared by the editors of the book which sets the stage for what follows. The rest of the articles are arranged by geography: “History of the UK oil and gas industry;” History of the oil and gas industry in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union;” and “History of the oil and gas industry in Western Europe.” The last section of the book is devoted to the “History of the petroleum industry and petroleum geologists.” The articles are all very well illustrated, many of which are in full color, with historic photographs, charts, maps, portraits of the key players, etc. In addition, the editors have added a very welcome “Bibliography of key publications on the history of the European oil and gas industry” and a “Gazetteer of oil and gas museums in Europe.” This volume is highly recommended as an introduction to the development of the oil and gas industry on the other side of the “Pond.” The articles are all well written, very well illustrated, and provide a wealth of bibliographic information. It should be on the book self of anyone with the slightest interest in how our current oil and gas industry got to where it is today