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

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Nov 08, 2009

Summary

A brilliant exposé of the oil industry uncovers the shocking human cost of fuel, says Peter Preston

Plunder, Rot, Fear, Greed and Desire. Laconic chapter headings tell the story. This brilliant, dismaying book by a reporter who delivers fact, analysis and eloquent anger with equal aplomb is designed to make you shudder the next time you drive on to a garage forecourt. Where did my last 20 litres come from? How many sickened and died in Africa or South America to keep the pumps I depend on full? And what will happen to me when, more swiftly than I can possibly realise, those pumps run dry?

Peter Maass travels far, wide and indefatigably, notebook in hand, visiting places where the world averts its eyes. Welcome to Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third largest exporter of oil and gas; population, 600,000. If you average out oil revenues across its citizens, it would be richer per capita than Saudi Arabia. In fact, it is dirt, diseased poor.

The managers at its mighty new natural gas plant arrive from America and Europe; the workers they control are flown in from India

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