Oil!

J. Arnold Ross, a self-made oil man, drills for oil across Southern California, buying land, officials and politicians, while his son Bunny, who grows up beside him in the oil fields, falls under the influence of the poor, rebellious Paul Watkins and begins to sympathise with the striking workers and the socialists. Between them stand Paul's brother Eli, a greedy evangelist, film stars, college radicals and the oil scandals that reached the White House in the 1920s.

Upton Sinclair based the novel on the real Teapot Dome scandal and published it in 1927; it was banned in Boston, and Sinclair protested by selling a 'fig leaf edition'. The film There Will Be Blood (2007) was loosely based on it. Read Sinclair's The Jungle.