Romania was shaped in significant ways by one industry: oil. It brought the best and worst to the nation, its economy, and its people. That story started far earlier than 1857 when the first commercially refined oil was produced in Romania. This we discover in a fast-paced anecdotal account of the people who shaped that history through World Wars, peace, Communism, and after: adventurers, geologists, corrupt insiders, fire-fighters, politicians, spies, lawyers, and business personalities of the fossil fuel era.