The purpose of this course is to provide an understanding of historical, international, political and economic aspects of international oil. It is structured into three parts.  The first part aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the historical evolution of oil in particular and hydrocarbons in general as a strategic commodity.  It examines the international aspects of oil; it emphasizes the historical evolution of international oil, its actors, the emergence of OPEC and the structural changes in the oil market, and the recent developments in world oil.  Second part focuses more on the relation between development and international oil by looking at the body of literature on the concepts of “resource curse” and “rentier state”.  The Third part of the course will be more of case studies focusing on different parts of the world experiencing the challenging relationship between development and income derived from hydrocarbon resources.  The case studies will be from Middle East, Latin America, Caspian and Eastern Mediterranean regions.