ABSTRACT
During the 1970s, in the course of six years, the world experienced two major oil shocks; in both cases, sudden and dramatic increases in the price of oil accompanied political turmoil in the Middle East. There were, however, marked differences as well as similarities between the two: while the first, in October 1973, combined a new outbreak of violence in the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict with a real shortage of supply in the oil market, the second revolved around domestic rev olution in Iran on the one hand, and an anticipated shortage of oil on the other. Both, however, caused consternation among consumers, and had wide-reaching, and often unanticipated, consequences. This chap ter looks in turn at how each crisis unfolded.
