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    Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
    Unavailable
    Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
    Unavailable
    Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
    Audiobook15 hours

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

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Big Oil and Gas versus democracy—winner take all

    In 2010, the words "earthquake swarm" entered the lexicon in Oklahoma. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia—including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove—was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. And in 2014, Ukrainian revolutionaries raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon. Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry.

    With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way, and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S. election. She deftly shows how Russia's rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia's rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West's most important alliances, and the United States. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, "like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can't really blame the lion. It's in her nature."

    Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world's most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, "Democracy either wins this one or disappears."

    Editor's Note

    Current #1 NYT bestseller…

    Rachel Maddow is known for taking deep dives into current politics, relaying not just the latest happenings, but fully laying out how we got to this point. In “Blowout,” she connects many different incidents and ills of our current democracy to the root cause of the big oil industry. “Blowout” is currently #1 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 1, 2019
    ISBN9781984846730
    Unavailable
    Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth

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    Reviews for Blowout

    4.5/5

    110 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      absolutely a must read book. thanks rachel maddow. loved it.
    • 5/5
      Great details and facts, with a witty story telling style that is very original to Ms. Maddow. I learned a ton from this book and I like the last book by Ms. Maddow it’s an extreme eye opening topic. Thank you for your service Rachel Maddow.
    • 5/5
      Everybody who cares about democracy needs to read this book ! Highly informative and surprisingly entertaining ... couldn’t put it down
    • 5/5
      A fascinating book on the oil and gas industry and the producing governments of such commodities.
    • 4/5
      Great info. I think it was a little longer than it needed to be.
    • 5/5
      Both the sharp (to the point) content and the humorous presentation make this book a winner! Thanks for the memories!
    • 5/5
      Ravel Maddow has done a remarkable job of investigative reporting here.
    • 5/5
      If you thought there was some space between Russian headlines and Ukrainian-linked impeachment hearings, you were wrong. And if you think Trump is a problem, wait'll you meet Rex Tillerson.
    • 5/5
      The way that is laid out , it tells a compelling story. Rachel Maddow knocked it out of the park with with this book. Loved it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Ms. Maddow has given us the Rosetta Stone of how to understand the modern world.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Blow hard,halfwit liberal,nonsense. About as close to reality as a Marvel Movie !
    • 5/5
      Maddow's thesis is that the oil and gas industry is an inherently corrupting force. She methodically lays out the voluminous supporting evidence, intermingled with vivid descriptions of the social, geopolitical and environmental conflagrations lit by oil's slick, corrupting influence.

      The contours of her thesis are not boldly drawn until the final two chapters, and I think the book suffers for it. This lack of conceptual reinforcement leaves some chapters feeling slightly bloated at the time you read them; however, at the conclusion, the work as a whole is seen as a forceful argument for implementing fairly straightforward, small-d democratic interventions to rein in an industry that is by its nature a force is amoral extraction.

      3 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Neoliberal nitrous oxide drivel
      conspiracy theorist word salad
      And a complete waste of time

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Outstanding and compelling Rachel lays it out with facts and humor. I really loved this book because now it all makes sense

      1 person found this helpful