“BLACK GOLD: How oil has changed the modern world”
The podcast explores how, from the legend of Marco Polo to Drake’s discovery, oil has revolutionised history, the economy and global conflicts
Before it set the world in motion, oil conquered the night.
In the 13th century, during his travels in Asia, Marco Polo told of a mysterious spring from which a dark oil flowed; it could not be eaten but was capable of burning. A substance known for centuries, yet whose destiny was still to be written.
It was not until 1859, when a former railway worker named Edwin Drake succeeded in extracting oil from beneath the ground in Pennsylvania, that this black liquid began its extraordinary rise. From a fuel used to light homes to the driving force behind industry and transport, it eventually became a strategic resource capable of determining the fortunes of nations, redrawing the boundaries of power and fuelling conflicts. In just over a century, oil would transform the global economy, revolutionise the daily lives of billions of people and lay the foundations for a dependence from which we are still trying to free ourselves today.
From the mysterious fountain described by Marco Polo to the first oil wells in Pennsylvania, from the energy crises of the 1970s to the wars over control of resources, right through to the plastics revolution and the challenges of the energy transition, the new podcast “BLACK GOLD. How oil has shaped the modern world”, created by UniCredit’s The Investment Institute, produced and distributed by 24 Ore Podcast, takes the listener on a journey through history, economics and geopolitics to discover the substance that, more than any other, has helped shape the modern world.
Comprising four episodes – Energy, Power, Dependence and Threat – BLACK GOLD is the third, but not the last, instalment of ‘Stories of Economics’, the project through which experts from UniCredit’s Investment Institute make the most complex topics in economics and the markets accessible via the engaging language of storytelling. A new journey through discoveries, ambitions, innovations and major transformations, enriching a narrative journey that began with MONETA, dedicated to the invention that changed the world, and continued with CAPITALISM, exploring the origins and evolution of the economic system that has shaped modern society. Three series to listen to in order to better understand the forces that have shaped our past, define the present and continue to influence the future.
