Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil Book

This book is more like an extended magazine article. It's listed as 276 pages, but that number drops to 225 if you leave out the endnotes. If you're looking for a broad introduction to the world of oil geopolitics, this may be the book for you. But the author has no special insight to offer, no new way of thinking about the problems involved with oil extraction, just restatements of what's been said and observed already many times.

The author himself may be aware of how unoriginal his book is, since sometimes he appears desperate to imbue his material with gratuitous significance. Describing Osama bin Laden's father, he writes, "If the oil boom had not happened, he could not have dreamed of such an extended family, and Osama would not have been born." Elsewhere he writes lazy sentences like, "Most Saudis would rather be unemployed than accept low-paying, difficult work." Yes, and most writers about oil would rather regurgitate unhelpful stereotypes than actually talk to Saudis. Lastly, other times the writing is just plain bad. Describing Hugo Chavez, he says "He fills a room like warm water poured into a cup."