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

She’s such a great storyteller, it was really enjoyable and easy to read even though the subject is so often infuriating. She’s really good, I’d read anything she wrote now that I’ve read about the military in Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power and oil & gas industry here and enjoyed both despite having no previous interest in either. And I learned a tremendous amount of really important subjects in both books. Just get whatever she writes, pals, so interesting. Oh, and get Bag Man. Podcast and book, both great. I know, I sound like such a fangirl. I wasn’t like this before the books. She’s just such an engaging storyteller. This isn’t about politics, it’s about skill at reporting and conveying info. OK, right, this book. Wow, if you want to understand a lot more about how the world works, read this. I had a sense about how much oil & gas ruled DC politics, but this really helped me understand how oil & gas are trying and frequently succeeding at ruling the world. Important reporting.

I have just finished the most astonishing book I have ever read in my 77 years, and I have read a lot of great ones! Rachel Maddow's newest book, Blowout (Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth) is a powerful, meticulously researched, and highly disturbing story of the devastation being caused by the corrupt practices of the world's major oil and gas companies, including our own.. I have to admit that I knew very little about this subject before reading this book, but Ms. Maddow writes in an easily readable style, and she brings the facts and the individuals involved to life in a most fascinating way. I couldn't put the book down. Her vivid descriptions of the terrible effects on people, animals, climate, and the environment (think multiple earthquakes!) caused by fracking and horizontal drilling are shocking. The nasty politics and cover-ups of the facts, the efforts to mislead and misinform the public, and the history of the tax "loopholes" that line the pockets of the incredibly rich principals of these corporations, will horrify those uninitiated with the facts. As I was reading this book, I kept thinking that Rachel Maddow is a woman who might consider engaging a bodyguard for her protection. She is a very brave author indeed!

Excellent read! Who knew the history of the oil and gas industry could be so captivating? But more so, it is a real eye-opener as to how the gas & oil industry operates and influences the entire world's - economics, wars, poverty, rise and power of authoritarian dictators, and more. It is also disturbing to see where it all begins - the United States - right there-smack dab in the middle of it all and how our policies affect and allow the gas & oil industry to do business both domestically and abroad. Explains so much about US foregin policy, its history, and how we got to where we are today-- and the direction its headed. Brilliant writing, extensive research, an abundance of sources cited, Maddow really outdid herself with this book. Should be mandatory reading for all high school & college US history and global studies classes.

Want to ruin your day, or week, or month, or even year? Read this book. Because, once you do, your faith in human behavior as a vehicle of good will diminish to practically nothing. Maddow is a craftsperson when it comes to putting together a series of events to tell an accurate compelling story. Given the time and breadth to do so in a book form, she weaves a tale of corruption, greed, lying as a way to do business, lying as a way of doing politics, and lying as a way to control others without remorse. In this particular book, the focus is on oil - those who find it, extract it, refine it, distribute it, and most important of all, control those that get in the way of obtaining it or restricting its use. It is no great surprise there are a handful of those that become ridiculously wealthy in doing these things and many others that receive precious little of the spoils that comes with extracting this rich resource from the bowels of the earth. In many cases, it has a detrimental effect on many others, whether it is meager wages or health effects or environmental consequences or, in the worst possible cases, loss of basic human needs or loss of life. Most of the tales focus on the greed of individuals that fight tooth and nail to make sure they have unrestricted access to continue drilling operations anywhere in the world. Every dirty trick is used to make sure the public is misinformed, laws are skirted or not applied at all, that palms are greased to those in position to make it available, and handle the occasional disastrous effects stemming from the uncertainties of drilling. It doesn't matter if obtaining oil requires dealing with democracies, authoritarian despots, or third world blighted countries, in all cases where a better human life is possible IF the gains from this rich extraction of material could be judiciously applied, never happens. Most remain dumb to their plight while the gears of getting the oil continues Occasionally, there is a story of salvation that slips through the cracks of this human tragedy, but the hope doesn't linger. I have little doubt that the research is spot on and the reported facts are accurate. Sure, there is a sense that Maddow purposefully presented the oil industry in the worst possible light, but there is no way to make a good squeaky clean fairy tale out of this. This hideous nature of the oil industry can't be told in an adoring light. Basically, the theme is that humans are cruel opportunistic cretins if put into a position to garner extravagant wealth or position in life. It isn't only in oil, as it is carefully laid out here, I'm sure. But for the purposes of this book, there are very few angels and we can't do much about it. If you aren't one of the privileged few, one of those on the inside looking out, you're f**ked, and it isn't likely going to change. Once you come to this conclusion, you'll wish you never read this book.

On Nov 6 2016 we had a 5 magnitude earthquake in Cushing, Ok. I live in a house approximately 2 miles from the epicenter. My home was built in 1922. It is a large 2 story brick home with a terracotta roof. The original roof had been there for 94 years - but no longer. The interior is all plaster both ceilings and walls. So there was damage in every room. Luckily I had earthquake insurance. It took a year to repair at a cost of $98,000.00. There were three chimneys and they all came down. There was no structural damage (except a collapsed ceiling). All the injection wells were shutdown within a 5 mile radius but we continued to have smaller quakes so the radius was extended to 10 miles. The quakes slowly tapered off and now and then we have a tremor but nothing over a 3. Rachel's book is so helpful in helping me understand how this happened. I have lived in Ok most of my life and come from a family that worked for a large oil company and everything she says is true. My great grandson goes to school 4 days a week because that is all his school system can afford. However, the problem of quakes is not over. So far this year Ok has had 202 earth quakes with the last one on Oct 2. Thank you Rachel for writing such a wonderful, engaging, informative book.

This is for sure some of Rachel Maddow's best work. And that's saying something given her prior achievements in relationship to ‘deep-dive’ journalism. It should be required reading for anybody who wants to understand how we got on the near precipice of the staggering environmental catastrophe known as ‘global warming’ and now increasingly referred to with that other euphemism - ’climate change’. The book is riveting, charming, infuriating, and brilliant in its depiction of the co-option of many governments, particularly our own, in the breakneck sociopathic/utilitarian exploitation of natural resources, in the service of unlimited fossil fuels, long-term environmental consequences be damned. All skillfully rationalized (jobs, energy independence, 'progress,' etc.) And yet I have to say, despite my enormous respect for this book, it comes up short framing the bigger picture of how something this catastrophic might really have happened. Standing back a goodly distance, one has to say that one common denominator is that we find sociopaths or at least individuals with significant sociopathic features in leadership positions within both powerful global corporations and within many governments. Rachel's book is littered with them - they are the stars and cast of her story. They simply do not care about the consequences to others of their exploitation of the environment, do not care that they are sacrificing the long-term planetary health for short-term gain, and simply do not care in anything but the most token fashion about the world's citizens, especially the less fortunate and less privileged ones who will certainly bear the extremely punitive impacts of climate change in the intermediate term. Not only do they not care but I believe many of them are genuinely psychologically incapable of caring. On the other hand, they care greatly about money, and the acquisition and corrupt exercise of power. And that's the problem. What the hell are we doing? Rachel talks about how real democracy is the only answer to this – but it's worth remembering that our increasingly manipulated democracy just gave the reins of an aggrandized presidency to Donald Trump, perhaps our second clearly sociopathic president since WWII. But they are everywhere. That is the question which the book begs but does not ask explicitly: why do we so often put sociopaths in charge – not in one place but all over the place? Can't we see who they are? This is really the disturbing question that Rachel does not ask us clearly enough to ponder. Why do we find people like Trump, Putin, Duterte, Erdoğan and yes, paradigmatically Hitler, worthy of leadership and the public trust? How did Putin become the richest and most powerful man in the world running what is essentially a Mafia state with nuclear weapons, working to destabilize and undermine all the Western democracies? What is wrong with us, that as sheep that we repeatedly and willingly enable the most ruthless of wolves? Even a cursory review of our history forces a conclusion that this alarming trend of populist naïveté, and the serial give away of power to the sociopathic is nothing new. If anything, quite the opposite. We apparently have been suckers for a never-ending parade of sociopathic and narcissistic leaders who have charmed us, seduced us and demagogued us into giving them power for as long as we have had human history, often times by channeling populist fear and hatred for out groups and other all-too-convenient scapegoats. The worst forms of tribalism appear to be the best friends and core weaponry of the worst sociopathic leaders. While they don't care about the environment, or the masses they exploit, they do care deeply about money and power. And they are good at acquiring and keeping it - and getting more of it! But it's never enough, as nothing seems to fill a hidden emptiness. And yet this answer itself is also unsatisfying - and gets each of us off the hook. We have to confess that our own utilitarian attitude towards Nature, that the biosphere on this planet is just a pile of resources to exploit without concern, and not something that we have to shepherd and care for, this exploitive and utilitarian attitude has been the invisible partner and enabler of our sociopathic corporate and government leadership around the exploitation of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have powered the wonders of our technological civilization, but that has led us to a fundamental overconfidence. We have too much faith in technology – technology cannot fix everything, and it cannot replace a fatally damaged ecology. One thing is clear – we are running out of time in which to figure these things out, to save the good and even wondrous parts of our technological civilization. Rachel's brilliant book hopefully will motivate us to take desperately needed action . . . and soon, and to better see through the fog of lies by those with the sickest of motives. As she says, real democracy must win out, or it, and much of the biosphere, dies in a sixth mass extinction that already has a scary level of momentum.

Maddow's book "Blowout" , is a tremendous exposé detailing how the oil and gas industry has risen from a humble beginning in a farmer's field in Pennsylvania, to become the most profitable industry on earth as well as an extremely powerful political entity unto itself. Written in Rachel Maddow's easy to understand and follow style, the book provides a history of the growth of industry and ultimately detailing how, through giants like Exxon Mobile, it has manipulated governments to its will for the sake of profits with a could care less attitude toward the well being of the average man, the earth, or political stability. The survival of the industry relies on ruthless dictators and authoritarian rulers that can be easily manipulated through profits. The unwritten part of the story provides the background behind the current Trump-Putin live affair. This is definitely a must read book for this interested in current events trying to find answers to the current state of global politics.

No writing or anything on book, spine not even bent slightly. I believe they stated it was good condition, I'd put it as "Like New", so very good condition. Great price.