The spike in the oil price to almost $150 per barrel in summer 2008 was the last great excess of the crazed noughties bull markets‎,‎ staged even as stock markets crumbled worldwide‎.‎ Contrary to entrenched establishment opinion still embraced by many‎,‎ "Petromania" proves this oil price blowout was a classic speculative bubble‎,‎ but driven primarily by new modes of financial speculation‎.‎ Demolishing widespread‎,‎ oft‎-repeated but incorrect arguments that such trade in paper barrels cannot move oil prices‎,‎ "Petromania" details how this financialisation of the oil markets meshed with other trends to create a moment that saw investment banks and hedge funds collectively wield more power over the price of black gold than OPEC or any multinational oil company‎.‎ It also shows how regulatory blindness to the ‎'‎dark matter‎'‎ of modern finance caused so many to confuse fantasy with reality for so long‎.‎ "Petromania" matters not just because fortunes were won and lost in oil‎'‎s dizzying ascent and crash‎,‎ but because this bubble spelled misery for ordinary people worldwide‎,‎ destabilised developing world governments‎,‎ and delayed interest rate cuts desperately needed to address the ongoing global recession‎.‎ "Petromania" matters because while all eyes are on the crippled banking system‎,‎ we risk ignoring valuable lessons about twenty‎-first century markets from this other great boom‎-and‎-bust ‎- even as the forces that blew the bubble are once again at work‎.‎ And "Petromania"‎,‎ this tale of black gold‎,‎ dark matter and paper barrels‎,‎ is written by one of the few commentators who correctly called the bubble before it burst‎.‎