Maddow also looks at the harm that gas and oil have done closer to home. Meanwhile, the citizens of Equatorial Guinea remained deeply impoverished. Silverstein reported extensively on the spectacular waste of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, son of the current president, who once spent $700,000 of that money to rent a boat to 'woo the rapper Eve,' among other absurd purchases (we never find out whether Eve was impressed). She uses Equatorial Guinea as a case study, based on the reporting of journalist Ken Silverstein, to show how profits from the nation's oil went not to citizens, but to kleptocrats. Though its value is not in original reporting, it usefully compiles the most convincing research and journalism on the harm that oil and gas have done to global democracy, and then weaves together a narrative of greed, power and corruption.įor instance, Maddow explains the 'resource curse:' the well-established idea that finding oil often harms countries, rather than helping them. The easy contempt is most grating when it seeps outside of the circle of her legitimate targets: 'What needed right then - like a junkie long past his last hit - was sanctions relief.'īut Blowout nonetheless feels like a public service. The jokes and insults are presumably meant to leaven a difficult subject I found them irritating, an exercise in letting readers feel morally and intellectually superior. Maddow's tone will be familiar to viewers of her show: It's knowing, cynical, and snide.

'Seems unlikely,' she writes, 'but it all ties.' In short, accessible chapters, Maddow covers apparently distinct topics, from fracking in Oklahoma to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the Sochi Olympics to corruption in Equatorial Guinea to the ring of inept Russian spies that inspired The Americans and, finally, to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Halfway through Blowout, Maddow's new book about the industry's impact on democracy worldwide, these claims begin to feel understated. The oil and gas industry, according to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, is 'ranging like a ravenous predator on the field of democracy.' It is 'Godzilla over downtown Tokyo.' It is 'the richest, most powerful, and most destructive industry on the globe.' Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Blowout Subtitle Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth Author Rachel Maddow

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