Rachel Maddow Takes On the Oil Industry

For those who have watched Rachel Maddow’s television show, the opening scene of her book will feel familiar in its eye for a compelling anecdote. She tells the 2003 story of a small new business in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood that is about to be inaugurated by a head of state, in fact, “one of the most powerful men on the planet.” We’re intrigued. It turns out the business is a gas station. What’s going on? Four paragraphs later, we learn that the mystery man is Vladimir Putin, who is publicizing one of a string of American gas stations acquired by the Russian oil giant Lukoil. Having piqued your interest, Maddow now broadens her narrative and explains why this anecdote is an apt illustration of the book’s larger point — the centrality and influence of the oil and gas industry.

“Blowout” is a rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today. While she is clearly animated by a concern about climate change, Maddow mostly describes the political consequences of an industry that has empowered some of the strangest people in the United States and the most unsavory ones abroad. It is “essentially a big casino,” she writes, “that can produce both power and triumphant great gobs of cash, often with little regard for merit.”

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