Introduction

By the nineteen thirties it had been perceived by the developing countries and by the colonies too that the control of national mineral resources by foreign corporations was a political anachronism. In 1938 the United Mexican States nationalized all of the petroleum operations taking place in the national territory into the ownership of Petroleos Mexicanos, Pemex, one of the world's first state oil companies. After the Second World War the old colonial empires started to collapse and the Age of Economic Nationalism had begun. In 1949 in the Netherlands East Indies after a long and bitter ...