More than $30 a barrel was a demand-destroying price and by 1986 oil was again selling at just $13 a barrel, setting the stage for yet another round of globalization—this time centered on China, whose rapid modernization was driven by Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms and by massive foreign investment. Two generations later, only those who lived through those years of price and supply turmoil (or those, increasingly few, who studied their impact) appreciate how traumatic these two waves of price rises were. Consequences of the resulting economic reversals
