India, March 21 -- The latest round of attacks, by US-Israel on Iran's gas fields and by Iran on Qatar's hydrocarbon infrastructure, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, underscores the germinal relation between the hydrocarbon economy and the overall global economy - and its central role in most conflicts of modern times. This week, we recommend author and energy expert Daneil Yergin's The Prize, which details the history of the hydrocarbon economy. It is this history that helps situate the current conflict within the larger churn in the energy economy and, by extension, the global economy. The book details oil's role as the central fault line in several conflicts; yet, Yergin's narrative is not just about the events that shaped it but also the politics and the human actors linked to these and the story of the post-industrialisation world. In this, it also reveals the rise of West Asian nations as oil economies, underscoring what is at stake as the current conflict intensifies....