Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil: The Violent Twilight of Oil

leondumoulin.nl: Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil (Audible Audio Edition): Dominic Hoffman, Peter Maass, Random House Audio: Books.
Table of contents

The strong men take command. Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia? We can all begin to write the script there.


  • See a Problem?.
  • Talking with Sartre: Conversations and Debates?
  • Historical Exklusiv Band 21: Der Meisterdieb / Auf verbotenen Wegen / (German Edition).
  • Grand Canyon National Park South Rim Tour Guide;
  • Scenes from the Violent Twilight of Oil – Foreign Policy.

Put Norway, Canada and perhaps Aberdeen to one side and it's hard to find anywhere that takes the gush of oil without an accompanying stench of corruption and a slick of environmental destruction oozing in its wake. But Maass plays much more than a mere polemicist.

In a way, it's the things that don't fit his thesis that make it most compelling. We're not just talking voracious capitalism, are we? When Teodoro Obiang heads some military parade, the roads he drives along are laid by Chinese workers. Nor are we talking simple populist idealism. When Rumsfeld and Bush pour armies into Iraq, it's easy to say that war is all about oil — but why then leave Baghdad's biggest, most precious refinery to its fate?

A master plan or a masterpiece of incompetence? Conspiracy theories don't always fit. We can make the supreme villains here the giants of American and European capitalism, the Exxons, the Shells, the BPs, but, increasingly, from Quito to Caracas to Moscow, it's the state oil and gas companies — owned by the people, for the people, but strangely not doing much good for the people — which do the continuing damage.

Must we blame rough men from Texas or smooth men from Pall Mall for offering gifts to the rulers who greet them on the runway, hands outstretched, money bags open? How much, at root, do we pump-fillers care as long as we get our fix? The strength of Crude World , filled with vivid reporting, is that it leaves you no option but to care. Its weakness is that it also offers no very convincing alternative.

What happens when the oil runs out? Maass believes that day is much closer than oil industry estimates of reserves would have us believe. Interviews with and observations on a panoply of people from Exxon CEO observations only to jihadist fighter. Full of facts, some of which may be outdated; e.

Ras Tanura is probably no longer the biggest terminal in the world.


  • Peter Maass | Books | Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil.
  • Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil?
  • Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil - Peter Maass - Google Книги!
  • The Life of Lady Jane Grey.
  • Coleccion Clasica (Los Miserables y Nuestra Senora de Paris) (Spanish Edition)?
  • Best Areas of Detroit Metropolitan Area.

Even if dated, they are illustrative; e. Dis Excellent book on the imperialistic geopolitics of oil. Discusses the "resource curse" why resource-rich countries usually have low per capita income. A good companion book to Sonia Shah's Crude: The Story of Oil. They complement each other.

I did not credit this book as well as it deserves for making clear that the whole world needs to move away from oil not only because our overuse of it is causing a climate crisis. Oil ruins the lives of millions of people through direct pollution, embedding corrupt or inept governments, and the Dutch Disease.

Book Review: 'Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil' by Peter Maass

Granted, solar energy is not a free lunch. Photovoltaic cells also require scarce resources like rare earths and heavy metals that can cause resource wars and harm the men and women who mine them. The scale is different, however. Also there are low-tech solar devices like cookers that don't require more than aluminum foil. Jan 05, Shawnyboy rated it liked it. I thought this was a fairly good book. Maas' writing was a little cheesy at times, but overall it was fairly informative.

I'm sure that if you're a student of world history, politics or economics then you won't find anything earth shattering in this book. Then again, if you're a student of those disciplines, I'm sure you wouldn't waste your time reading a book like this, because you should probably be working on your own! For someone like myself, who's finally starting to delve deeper into what I thought this was a fairly good book.

Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil by Peter Maass | Book review | Books | The Guardian

For someone like myself, who's finally starting to delve deeper into what makes my world tick, this was a good intro. It didn't have a lot of flow and essentially felt like a few magazine articles put together back-to-back to make up a book. That being said, that's probably what made it an easy read and good for those who want to get an overview of what oil can do to an already unstable country. It is incredible what humans will do for crude oil.

The accountability at the oil companies has to end with someone somewhere. Sure, the countries that are featured in this book already had their problems before the oil companies got there, but going in and pillaging the resources and handing fistfuls of money to despots and dictators sure hasn't helped anything. And the excuse that "oil companies' only directive is to make money" is starting to wear a little thin. Surely a top level executive's conscience has to take over at some point and allow that executive to steer his or her company towards a better path?

All that being said, the buck truly stops with the end user.

Customers who bought this item also bought

It's up to us, the little guys to do something. Our own greed and consumption is what drives the giant corporations' greed. Maass brings forward the question of whether we want to see corruption via our own western oil conglomerates or from the usual suspects such as the world developing state governments. It is true that the former allows some sort of comfort since we feel that we have the freedom to critique, protest or even sue these companies. Whereas in the regimes outside the western world people are helpless and are destined to live a life of injustice and poverty.

And then there are countries like Brunei, whi Maass brings forward the question of whether we want to see corruption via our own western oil conglomerates or from the usual suspects such as the world developing state governments.


  1. Scenes from the Violent Twilight of Oil.
  2. Periodismo Ambiental. Riesgos y oportunidades en la cobertura informativa (Spanish Edition).
  3. Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage.

    4. And then there are countries like Brunei, which holds 0. From the advertisements in the airport to the oil and gas section in the national museum it is evident how important oil and gas is to Brunei. Despite the excesses of the royal family, the quality of life is above most of the countries in Asia and I was surprised to see only a handful of motorbikes on the streets. Brunei has one of the highest car per capita ratio which hopefully doesn't take into account the sultan's own collection of at least cars. But as Maass points out it is easy for a country like Brunei and Kuwait to maintain a good quality of life when the monarchies only have to accommodate for a small population.

    Sep 08, Gabriel rated it liked it. You can find an interesting article in Business Week regarding this new occupation. Apr 09, Lois rated it it was amazing. This is an excellent book to inform all users of fossil fuels. The truth behind obtaining oil is revealed. Destruction of nature, greed of those in power and their selfish use of the proceeds.

    This book covers the experience of a reporter over several decades leading to a truth filled account of how oil is obtained and a scratch on the surface of the politics that keep humanities' abuse of the planet behind closed doors. This book is written in a manner that makes it an easy read for a mature re This is an excellent book to inform all users of fossil fuels.

    This book is written in a manner that makes it an easy read for a mature reader. It is not an over technical, boring book! Feb 19, Andrew Helms rated it it was ok. From an anecdotal perspective, it was a relatively interesting book. However, in terms of expanding the discussion and discourse around natural resources, economic development and a path forward, Maass really did not present anything groundbreaking, or even fresh.

    You could summarize the whole book as: Oil gives a lot of wealth, governments and oil companies usually take advantage of this and exploit people. Things should not be this way. Mar 11, Megan rated it really liked it Shelves: A look at the impacts of oil on the world's largest suppliers. Power politics and recent historical views are covered well.

    Product details

    Since the book was published in I'm giving it 4 stars 3. A good introduction to the ravages of oil on the people who live where it is extracted. Nov 28, Matthew Trevithick rated it it was ok. Not really a great book - as others have said, sort of reads like a long magazine article. No heavy hitting analysis, though the author does manage to get interviews with some key players in the oil industry. The main point of this book is: While some of the examples of how disturbing it is are memorable, for the most part, this is a book that tells you things you already know.

    Jun 29, Alice rated it it was amazing Shelves: Anyone interested in why the Gulf Oil Spill happened should read this book, which was published in The frightening mentality of oil companies and what they have been doing around the world to other countries and cultures is alarming. It also explains how this nightmare happened in our backyard. Genocide, environmental devastation, global warming, "human rights" little more than an abstraction Interesting discussion of the impact of oil in oil-rich countries.

    Apparently, the presence of oil does not equal economic or political stability. I enjoyed reading the author's argument about the politics of oil. My one criticism is that at times, his writing is disjointed. Highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the oil industry. Jan 29, Hans Hoffmann rated it really liked it. For those who want a quick overview of how the Oil industry works worldwide this is a great read. A large part of the latter could be avoided but shareholders are more important.

    Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil by Peter Maass

    Random House Audio Audible. September 29, Whispersync for Voice: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Maass does a great job explaining the Curse of Oil, the Paradox of Plenty, the Dutch Disease, or whatever name you want to call the effect of extractive industries on countries without much economic diversification and even less political transparency.

    He says little or nothing about Peak Oil, and how recent advances in drilling technology such as fracking, may have moved the doomsday clock of scarcity back a generation. Maass takes us on a journey from country to country where the oil companies have raped the land while getting rich extracting and selling the black gold found underneath the land. The effects of unsupervised oil production are not pretty. Polluted waterways, birth defects and corruption are just a few of the side effects which happen when oil companies cut costs and corners in production, because they can, because their competitors do, and because the individual governments allow them to.

    Maass describes all of this in an interesting readable style, but he is more of an observer than a problem solver. He does not propose solutions to the curse. Is that solution an end to drilling? Is it better regulation? Is the solution industrial development to provide an economic counterweight to the money the drillers bring to a country?

    Maass does not really tell us. He describes the problem, but not the solution. Maass's introductory quote John Paul Getty, however, may give us a hint as to what Maass thinks should be done. Maass may also be hinting that a little less meekness from the people who live where oil is found may help turn the Curse into a prayer. Oil seems to be bad news. The BP Deep Horizon disaster is a timely illustration of the point: BP has a long record of disregard for facilities maintenance. BP has had several fatal disasters.

    BP has a dismal environmental record. BP is unlikely to clean up the mess in the Gulf of Mexico and has consistently and deliberately underestimated the extent of the damage. BP probably will not compensate the fisheries industry, tourism, homeowners and others for their losses assuming irreparable damage to the ecosystem and the Gulf economy has not already occurred.

    BP is emblematic of the problems inherent in the extraction and marketing of petroleum products and journalist Peter Maas very compellingly and cogently addresses the entire sorry mess in this book. Instead, it is a trenchantly argued polemic and indictment: Maas uses copious examples which illustrate the book's premise. The author adroitly places editorial commentary to illustrate the facts which are seemingly self-evident.

    Maas argues that petroleum corrupts and defiles the countries from which it is extracted. For example, he asserts that the government of Equatorial Guinea, with its inherent corruption and maniacal violence has been materially worsened by the presence of copious amounts of petroleum and the oceans of cash that it has garnered. He further claims that the brutality, inefficiency, avarice, disregard for the welfare of the population and the environment are all further exacerbated by petroleum-related wealth regardless of the country of origin, with the apparent exceptions of the UK and Norway.

    While Maas is doubtlessly correct in that assertion witness the corruption and coziness between governments in the "developed countries" like the U. It seems to me that, were the principals of good government and rule of law already part of the social compact, petroleum would advance rather than retard development in other countries, as well. Prior to the discovery of oil, Norway already had a diversified economy and an intelligent, well-educated and cohesive electorate. Perhaps it is because most lack a diversified economy, many have ideologically motivated governments and fearful, atomized populations.

    So, oil lubricates not only machinery, but corruption and other bad traits, as well. There are other looming problems for a fossil-fuel dependent world.