I’m a Stanford professor who became fascinated
with oil and everything it does to for us and to us. For years I traveled the
world talking to the people who know petroleum: executives in the big oil companies,
politicians and activists, militants and victims, spies and tribal chiefs. Blood
Oil explains what I learned and how we can make our oil-cursed world better
for all of us.
I wrote...
Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World
Putin, ISIS, Gaddafi, Saddam, Assad, the Ayatollahs, the Saudis… all got rich from oil money—our money, paid at the pump for gasoline. Why are we in business with these men of blood?
This book finds the answer in an ancient rule that once legalized the slave trade, genocide and apartheid, and zombies on in today’s multi-trillion dollar oil market, sending our money to autocrats and extremists worldwide, and returning us endless wars, threats, and crises. Upgrading world trade will make us more secure at home, more trusted abroad, and more agile with climate change. My aim Blood Oil is to show how we can act today to end the world’s ‘oil curse,’ and to create a more united human future.
Most of us believe that the Big Oil has politicians in its pocket, and that oil drives America’s actions in the Middle East.
Yergin’s terrific history shows that there’s so much more: oil has fueled the growth of empires, it has decided the world wars, it has made and broken some of the world’s biggest fortunes. (You might also like the TV documentary made from the book, narrated by Donald Sutherland.)
Written by the author of "Shattered Peace" and "Energy Future", this book brings to life the tycoons, wildcatters, monopolists, regulators, presidents, generals and sheiks whose struggle for oil has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, transformed the destiny of Britain and the world and profoundly changed all our lives. Beginning with the first oil well of the 1850s and continuing up to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, it is a story of greed, gumption nad ingenuity, all in pursuit of "the prize" - worldwide economic, military and political mastery through the control of oil. The book includes…
If you love villains, you’ll love this book (plus all these villains are real).
Psychopathic dictators, Russian arms dealers, ultra-violent warlords, and corrupt French presidents all show the evil oil can inspire—and the ruin it can bring to a country. I had to put this book down a few times; the depravity around oil can shock even those of us who think we’ve heard it all.
Each week the oil and gas fields of sub-Saharan Africa produce over a billion dollars worth of oil yet this rising tide of money is not promoting stability or development but instead is causing violence, poverty and stagnation. "Poisoned Wells" exposes the root causes of this paradox of poverty from plenty, and explores the mechanisms by which oil causes grave instabilities and corruption around the globe. Shaxson's access as a journalist to the key players in African oil results in an explosive story.
This is an academic book that might knock your
socks off. Ross shows why countries with lots of oil are more likely to suffer
from dictators, civil wars, and worse economies—and even why they’re worse for
women than for men.
Could oil become a blessing instead of a curse in these
countries? Read Ross to find out.
Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how developing nations are shaped by their mineral wealth--and how they can turn oil from a curse into a blessing. Ross traces the oil curse to the upheaval of the 1970s, when oil prices soared and governments across the developing world seized control of their countries' oil industries. Before nationalization, the oil-rich countries looked much like the rest of the…
Oil isn’t the only natural resource that can
curse: the Belgian colonizers inflicted decades of extraordinary brutality on
the peoples of the Congo while extracting their ivory and rubber.
Hochschild
paints horrific vistas of extreme greed and violence, and also tells the
stories of the heroic individuals who resisted it. I didn’t know much about
real ‘The Heart of Darkness’ before reading this book—now I know that the true
savages were the Europeans.
Winner of the Duff Cooper Prize, King Leopold's Ghost is the true and haunting account of Leopold's brutal regime and its lasting effect on a ruined nation. With an introduction by award-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver.
In the late nineteenth century, when the great powers in Europe were tearing Africa apart and seizing ownership of land for themselves, King Leopold of Belgium took hold of the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. In his devastatingly barbarous colonization of this area, Leopold stole its rubber and ivory, pummelled its people and set up a ruthless regime that would reduce…
You may have seen There Will Be Blood, which won
Daniel Day Lewis an Academy Award.
Sinclair’s novel (which inspired the film) satirizes
the petroleum-fueled tycoons and preachers of Southern California a century
ago. For an extra treat, follow this novel with Darren Dochuk’s Anointed
with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America, which weaves together
the stories of American oil, American religion, and the great schism within today’s
Republican Party.
In Oil! Upton Sinclair fashioned a novel out of the oil scandals of the Harding administration, providing in the process a detailed picture of the development of the oil industry in Southern California. Bribery of public officials, class warfare, and international rivalry over oil production are the context for Sinclair's story of a genial independent oil developer and his son, whose sympathy with the oilfield workers and socialist organizers fuels a running debate with his father. Senators, small investors, oil magnates, a Hollywood film star, and a crusading evangelist people the pages of this lively novel.
Too often, I find that novelists force the endings of their books in ways that aren’t true to their characters, the stories, or their settings. Often, they do so to provide the Hollywood ending that many readers crave. That always leaves me cold. I love novels whose characters are complex, human, and believable and interact with their setting and the story in ways that do not stretch credulity. This is how I try to approach my own writing and was foremost in my mind as I set out to write my own book.
The Oracle of Spring Garden Road explores the life and singular worldview of “Crazy Eddie,” a brilliant, highly-educated homeless man who panhandles in front of a downtown bank in a coastal town.
Eddie is a local enigma. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? A dizzying ride between past and present, the novel unravels these mysteries, just as Eddie has decided to return to society after two decades on the streets, with the help of Jane, a woman whose intelligence and integrity rival his own. Will he succeed, or is it too late?
In the tradition of Graham Greene, this is a book about love, betrayal, and life’s heavenly music
“Crazy Eddie” is a homeless man who inhabits two squares of pavement in front of a bank in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this makeshift office, he panhandles and dispenses his peerless wisdom. Well-educated, fiercely intelligent with a passionate interest in philosophy and a profound love of nature, Eddie is an enigma for the locals. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? Though rumors abound, none capture the unique worldview and singular character that led him to withdraw from the perfidy and corruption of human beings. Just as Eddie has…
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