Daniel Yergin: evaluation

Transcript context

…Let's go to World War I and World War II. A couple months ago, I interviewed the biographer of Churchill, Andrew Roberts. As you discuss in your book, he discusses that Churchill was this sort of technological visionary and how that's a side of him that isn't talked about often. Maybe talk a little bit about what Churchill did and how he saw the power of oil. Churchill was the First Lord of the Admiralty. All the naval ships at that time ran on coal, which means you had to have people on board shoveling coal. It took a long time to get the coal on board. If you switched to oil, the ships would be faster. They wouldn't need to take the same time. They wouldn't need to carry the same people. So he made the decision—obviously others like Admiral Jackie Fisher were pushing him—to convert the Royal Navy to oil. People were saying this is treacherous because we'll depend upon oil from far away, from Persia, rather than Welsh coal. He said, "This is the prize of the venture." That's where I got my title from. Originally it was going to be called “The Prize of the Venture" because that's what he said. Then I just made it The Prize. During World War I, he promoted another military development. I'm forgetting what it was called initially, but it eventually became known as the tank. He really did constantly push technology. Why? I don't know. He was not educated like that. He was educated in the classic sense. That's why he wrote so well. But he understood technology and that you had to constantly push for advantage. World War II is just who can produce the most amount of things. But World War I is especially interesting as a technological war because in the span of four or five years, you go from battlefields with horses to literally the tank being invented during this time. You go from hundreds to thousands of trucks, cars, and planes.…

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