Read This Book

I forgot who recommended Crude World to me but it was someone on Tumblr. I just finished it. Pretty much a must read. Peter Maass dives into the complex, violent, Kafka-esque and stunningly lucrative world of oil.

The book is both history lesson and current events lecture. I learned quite a bit…mostly that what I thought I knew about oil was either wrong or so superficial as to make me dangerously ignorant. I will not let that happen again.

Hardcover version is here. Kindle version is here.

I’ll leave you with this excerpt:

“Power” is a vague word. It can mean gasoline or knowledge or the authority to order an execution. Oil is unique because it can be transformed into so many types of power—it can make lights burn and planes fly; it can turn wildcatters into millionaires and nations into superpowers. This is a problem as well as an attribute, because when power is measured in the hundreds of billions of barrels, and when it can be controlled by one man or one institution, it can be too much of a good thing.

—Peter Maass, Crude World

Credit to Denton, YM or me, maybe. It is an excellent book.

Source evangotlib