Stock's par, stock's up, Then on the wane; Every body's troubled with Oil on the brain.
-- From a song, "Oil on the Brain," 1864

Most Americans have pretty strong opinions about high gasoline prices, oil companies and foreign oil. Indeed, one needn't spend very much time at a service station to hear loud and profane suggestions about how to solve matters (a hangman's noose or nuclear weapons are often part of the scenario). Yet it's a pretty safe bet that unless the ranters are somehow involved in the petroleum industry or have devoted considerable hours to its study, they really don't know what they're talking about. They're operating on perception, and the perception's uninformed. Sadly, politicians and industry spokesmen haven't done much to dispel the confusion.

For those interested in penetrating the thicket of rhetoric and misinformation surrounding the subject, there's no better guide than "Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline" (Doubleday, $26) by Lisa Margonelli. In what is easily one of the most compelling examples of reportage I've read in many a year, Margonelli, a journalist and Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation, backtracks the story of gasoline from its arrival at the pump to the tanker truck to the refinery to the oilfield, and to the New York oil markets. Add her detours to little-visited places like Chad, Iran and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (somewhere on the Gulf Coast, the exact location classified) as well as historical digressions -- all delivered in a slightly bemused and punchy style -- and the result is an indispensable book that every American ought to read...

For the complete review, please visit the The Press-Register website.