” Crude World” offers a passionate look at some of the most awful places in the world: the violent, repressive & polluted countries that are also where oil is extracted. Peter Maass follows the journey of oil & shows how the substance sullies so much of what it touches, poisoning land & rivers, promoting political bloodshed & creating corruption on a staggering scale. We tend to gauge the price of oil by its cost at the petrol station or its role in global warming, but Maass vividly shows an altogether different price paid by people who live in countries that are rich in petroleum but not wealth or freedom. He shows how the profits of oil benefit mainly the companies & governments that receive royalty cheques & will do more or less anything to sustain the flow of money. From Nigerian fishermen to Moscow oligarchs, from American generals in Iraq to environmentalists in Ecuador, from British executives to Saudi jihadists, Peter Maass connects the dots & shows how our relationship to oil is so deadly. Crude World is a great piece of reportage that reveals the price others pay for the lives we lead.