Introduction

The oil price collapse of 1985-6 had momentous global consequences: non-fossil energy sources quickly became uncompetitive, the previous talk of an OPEC "imperium" was turned upside-down, the Soviet Union lost a large portion of its external revenues, and many Third World producers saw their foreign debts peak.

Compared to the much-debated 1973 oil shock, the countershock has not received the same degree of attention, even though its legacy has shaped the present-day energy scenario.

This volume is the first to put the oil counter-shock of the mid-1980s into historical perspective. Featuring some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, Counter-Shock offers a balanced approach between the global picture and local study cases.

In particular, it highlights the crucial interaction between the oil counter-shock and the political counterrevolution against state intervention in economic management, put forward by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same period.