The Corbett Report – Why Big Oil Conquered the World | EP 2
Big Oil accumulated extraordinary wealth and influence. James Corbett's follow-up asks a more provocative question: what was all that power ultimately used for?
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Why you've GOTTA.WATCH it
If controlling oil created enormous wealth and influence, what was that power ultimately used for?
Why Big Oil Conquered the World is James Corbett’s follow-up to his 2015 documentary How Big Oil Conquered the World. Rather than simply continuing the history of the petroleum industry, the second film asks a more ambitious question: why did the institutions surrounding Big Oil seek influence far beyond energy?
Corbett examines connections between oil fortunes, foundations, scientific research, agriculture, population policy, environmentalism and emerging technologies.
His argument is deliberately provocative. According to Corbett, understanding Big Oil requires looking beyond the familiar story of companies seeking greater profits from petroleum. He argues that the wealth generated by oil helped create institutions capable of influencing how societies develop, how resources are managed and how the future itself is imagined.
The documentary moves from the industrial age toward questions about biotechnology, environmental policy and technological systems of control, presenting Corbett’s interpretation of how old centers of economic power have adapted to a changing world.
Why Big Oil Conquered the World is therefore less a documentary about oil than a documentary about power — where it comes from, how it survives and what happens when enormous private fortunes become embedded in institutions capable of shaping society for generations.
Why you’ve GOTTA.WATCH it
The first film asks how Big Oil accumulated extraordinary power.
The second asks what happened to that power afterward.
It is the more provocative half of Corbett’s investigation, connecting the history of the petroleum age with much larger questions about technology, environmental policy and the institutions attempting to shape our future.
You may agree with Corbett, disagree with him or land somewhere in between. But his argument is worth hearing in full.
The Oil Rabbit Hole
Oil is more than fuel. It has shaped industries, wars, alliances, currencies and global power for more than a century. Follow the rabbit hole from the rise of the modern oil industry to the geopolitics of energy and the petrodollar system that tied oil to the U.S. dollar.