Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth

Description

1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy—Winner Take
All “A rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting, and
alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world
today.”—The New York Times Book Review In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm”
entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson
memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at
auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly
forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014,
revolutionaries in Ukraine raided the palace of their ousted president and
found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled
after a Spanish galleon. Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread
connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source:
the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry. With
her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the
globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way,
and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked
the 2016 U.S. election. She deftly shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude
have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Vladimir Putin to maintain
his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West’s
most important alliances, and the United States. Chevron, BP, and a host of
other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the
deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. The oil and gas industry has weakened
democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers,
and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is,
according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a
gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s in her nature.” Blowout is a
call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest businesses on
earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world’s
most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher.
As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.” Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; First Edition (October 1, 2019)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525575472
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 74
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 1 year and up
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.3 x 1.29 x 9.5 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #17,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #8 in Russian History (Books) #26 in Political Corruption & Misconduct #108 in U.S. State & Local History
• #8 in Russian History (Books)