Beneath Venezuelan soil lies an ocean of crude—the world’s largest reserves—an oil patch that shaped the nature of the global energy business. Unfortunately, a dysfunctional anti-American, leftist government controls this vast resource and has used its wealth to foster voter support, ultimately wreaking economic havoc. Crude Nation reveals the ways in which this mismanagement has led to Venezuela’s economic ruin and turned the country into a cautionary tale for the world. Raúl Gallegos, a former Caracas-based oil correspondent, paints a picture both vivid and analytical of the country’s economic decline, the government’s foolhardy economic policies, and the wrecked lives of Venezuelans. Without transparency, the Venezuelan government uses oil money to subsidize life for its citizens in myriad unsustainable ways, while regulating nearly every aspect of day-to-day existence in Venezuela. This has created a paradox in which citizens can fill up the tanks of their SUVs for less than one American dollar while simultaneously enduring nationwide shortages of staples such as milk, sugar, and toilet paper. Gallegos’s insightful analysis shows how mismanagement has ruined Venezuela again and again over the past century and lays out how Venezuelans can begin to fix their country, a nation that can play an important role in the global energy industry. This paperback edition features a new introduction by the author.

“Full of schadenfreude and speculation—and solid, timely history too.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is a portrait of capitalism as white-knuckle risk taking, yielding fruitful discoveries for the fathers, but only sterile speculation for the sons—a story that resonates with today's economic upheaval.” —Publishers Weekly “What's not to enjoy about a book full of monstrous egos, unimaginable sums of money, and the punishment of greed and shortsightedness?” —The Economist Phenomenal reviews and sales greeted the hardcover publication of The Big Rich, New York Times bestselling author Bryan Burrough's spellbinding chronicle of Texas oil. Weaving together the multigenerational sagas of the industry's four wealthiest families, Burrough brings to life the men known in their day as the Big Four: Roy Cullen, H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, and Sid Richardson, all swaggering Texas oil tycoons who owned sprawling ranches and mingled with presidents and Hollywood stars. Seamlessly charting their collective rise and fall, The Big Rich is a hugely entertaining account that only a writer with Burrough's abilities-and Texas upbringing-could have written.

Billionaire oil trader Marc Rich for the first time talks at length about his private life (including his expensive divorce from wife Denise); his invention of the spot oil market, which made his fortune and changed the world economy; his lucrative and unpublicized dealings with Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran, Fidel Castro's Cuba, war-ravaged Angola, and apartheid South Africa; his quiet cooperation with the Israeli and U.S. governments (even after he was indicted for tax fraud by Rudy Guiliani) and near-comical attempts by U.S. officials to kidnap him illegally. This sure-to-make-headlines book is the first no-holds-barred biography of Rich, who was famously pardoned by Bill Clinton, and resurfaced in the news during the confirmation hearings of Attorney General Eric Holder. The King of Oil sheds stunning new light on one of the most controversial international businessmen of all time.

"Born in 1948, in Abu Dhabi, the author knew dreadful poverty for years before fabulous oil wealth transformed his country forever. He grew up in the ruler's palace, barefoot like his playmates, now senior figures in the United Arab Emirates." "This is a vivid eye-witness account of the total transformation within only 30 years of a Bedouin society into a country with the world's highest per capita income. He speaks with great frankness about his own life and career and about the role of the British in his country."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Here is a saga of the roaring twenties, with its glorification of business, its get-rich-quick mentality, and its paucity of government regulation--which bred speculation, corruption, and corporate chaos throughout the country. The Great Los Angeles Swindle exposes the schemes of C. C. Julian and his Julian Petroleum Corporation, known familiarly to thousands of Los Angeles residents as Julian Pete, thanks to Julian's folksy weekly newspaper ads. The Julian Pete swindle ranked with Teapot Dome as one of the great scandals of the era and symbolized the failure of 20s boosterism and speculation. Here is a saga of the roaring twenties, with its glorification of business, its get-rich-quick mentality, and its paucity of government regulation--which bred speculation, corruption, and corporate chaos throughout the country. The Great Los Angeles Swindle exposes the schemes of C. C. Julian and his Julian Petroleum Corporation, known familiarly to thousands of Los Angeles residents as Julian Pete, thanks to Julian's folksy weekly newspaper ads. The Julian Pete swindle ranked with Teapot Dome as one of the great scandals of the era and symbolized the failure of 20s boosterism and speculation.

When Nigeria hosted the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, it celebrated a global vision of black nationhood and citizenship animated by the exuberance of its recent oil boom. Andrew Apter's The Pan-African Nation tells the full story of this cultural extravaganza, from Nigeria's spectacular rebirth as a rapidly developing petro-state to its dramatic demise when the boom went bust. According to Apter, FESTAC expanded the horizons of blackness in Nigeria to mirror the global circuits of its economy. By showcasing masks, dances, images, and souvenirs from its many diverse ethnic groups, Nigeria forged a new national culture. In the grandeur of this oil-fed confidence, the nation subsumed all black and African cultures within its empire of cultural signs and erased its colonial legacies from collective memory. As the oil economy collapsed, however, cultural signs became unstable, contributing to rampant violence and dissimulation. The Pan-African Nation unpacks FESTAC as a historically situated mirror of production in Nigeria. More broadly, it points towards a critique of the political economy of the sign in postcolonial Africa.

This book seeks to explain the political and religious factors leading to the economic reversal of fortunes between Europe and the Middle East.