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

This is for sure some of Rachel Maddow's best work. And that's saying something given her prior achievements in relationship to ‘deep-dive’ journalism. It should be required reading for anybody who wants to understand how we got on the near precipice of the staggering environmental catastrophe known as ‘global warming’ and now increasingly referred to with that other euphemism - ’climate change’. The book is riveting, charming, infuriating, and brilliant in its depiction of the co-option of many governments, particularly our own, in the breakneck sociopathic/utilitarian exploitation of natural resources, in the service of unlimited fossil fuels, long-term environmental consequences be damned. All skillfully rationalized (jobs, energy independence, 'progress,' etc.) And yet I have to say, despite my enormous respect for this book, it comes up short framing the bigger picture of how something this catastrophic might really have happened. Standing back a goodly distance, one has to say that one common denominator is that we find sociopaths or at least individuals with significant sociopathic features in leadership positions within both powerful global corporations and within many governments. Rachel's book is littered with them - they are the stars and cast of her story. They simply do not care about the consequences to others of their exploitation of the environment, do not care that they are sacrificing the long-term planetary health for short-term gain, and simply do not care in anything but the most token fashion about the world's citizens, especially the less fortunate and less privileged ones who will certainly bear the extremely punitive impacts of climate change in the intermediate term. Not only do they not care but I believe many of them are genuinely psychologically incapable of caring. On the other hand, they care greatly about money, and the acquisition and corrupt exercise of power. And that's the problem. What the hell are we doing? Rachel talks about how real democracy is the only answer to this – but it's worth remembering that our increasingly manipulated democracy just gave the reins of an aggrandized presidency to Donald Trump, perhaps our second clearly sociopathic president since WWII. But they are everywhere. That is the question which the book begs but does not ask explicitly: why do we so often put sociopaths in charge – not in one place but all over the place? Can't we see who they are? This is really the disturbing question that Rachel does not ask us clearly enough to ponder. Why do we find people like Trump, Putin, Duterte, Erdoğan and yes, paradigmatically Hitler, worthy of leadership and the public trust? How did Putin become the richest and most powerful man in the world running what is essentially a Mafia state with nuclear weapons, working to destabilize and undermine all the Western democracies? What is wrong with us, that as sheep that we repeatedly and willingly enable the most ruthless of wolves? Even a cursory review of our history forces a conclusion that this alarming trend of populist naïveté, and the serial give away of power to the sociopathic is nothing new. If anything, quite the opposite. We apparently have been suckers for a never-ending parade of sociopathic and narcissistic leaders who have charmed us, seduced us and demagogued us into giving them power for as long as we have had human history, often times by channeling populist fear and hatred for out groups and other all-too-convenient scapegoats. The worst forms of tribalism appear to be the best friends and core weaponry of the worst sociopathic leaders. While they don't care about the environment, or the masses they exploit, they do care deeply about money and power. And they are good at acquiring and keeping it - and getting more of it! But it's never enough, as nothing seems to fill a hidden emptiness. And yet this answer itself is also unsatisfying - and gets each of us off the hook. We have to confess that our own utilitarian attitude towards Nature, that the biosphere on this planet is just a pile of resources to exploit without concern, and not something that we have to shepherd and care for, this exploitive and utilitarian attitude has been the invisible partner and enabler of our sociopathic corporate and government leadership around the exploitation of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels have powered the wonders of our technological civilization, but that has led us to a fundamental overconfidence. We have too much faith in technology – technology cannot fix everything, and it cannot replace a fatally damaged ecology. One thing is clear – we are running out of time in which to figure these things out, to save the good and even wondrous parts of our technological civilization. Rachel's brilliant book hopefully will motivate us to take desperately needed action . . . and soon, and to better see through the fog of lies by those with the sickest of motives. As she says, real democracy must win out, or it, and much of the biosphere, dies in a sixth mass extinction that already has a scary level of momentum.

I have just finished the most astonishing book I have ever read in my 77 years, and I have read a lot of great ones! Rachel Maddow's newest book, Blowout (Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth) is a powerful, meticulously researched, and highly disturbing story of the devastation being caused by the corrupt practices of the world's major oil and gas companies, including our own.. I have to admit that I knew very little about this subject before reading this book, but Ms. Maddow writes in an easily readable style, and she brings the facts and the individuals involved to life in a most fascinating way. I couldn't put the book down. Her vivid descriptions of the terrible effects on people, animals, climate, and the environment (think multiple earthquakes!) caused by fracking and horizontal drilling are shocking. The nasty politics and cover-ups of the facts, the efforts to mislead and misinform the public, and the history of the tax "loopholes" that line the pockets of the incredibly rich principals of these corporations, will horrify those uninitiated with the facts. As I was reading this book, I kept thinking that Rachel Maddow is a woman who might consider engaging a bodyguard for her protection. She is a very brave author indeed!

On Nov 6 2016 we had a 5 magnitude earthquake in Cushing, Ok. I live in a house approximately 2 miles from the epicenter. My home was built in 1922. It is a large 2 story brick home with a terracotta roof. The original roof had been there for 94 years - but no longer. The interior is all plaster both ceilings and walls. So there was damage in every room. Luckily I had earthquake insurance. It took a year to repair at a cost of $98,000.00. There were three chimneys and they all came down. There was no structural damage (except a collapsed ceiling). All the injection wells were shutdown within a 5 mile radius but we continued to have smaller quakes so the radius was extended to 10 miles. The quakes slowly tapered off and now and then we have a tremor but nothing over a 3. Rachel's book is so helpful in helping me understand how this happened. I have lived in Ok most of my life and come from a family that worked for a large oil company and everything she says is true. My great grandson goes to school 4 days a week because that is all his school system can afford. However, the problem of quakes is not over. So far this year Ok has had 202 earth quakes with the last one on Oct 2. Thank you Rachel for writing such a wonderful, engaging, informative book.

A well written, short history of the oil and gas industry - the search for it - the greed that drove competition - the corruption within it - the politics of it - and revealing a dependency that has reshaped politics, created obscene wealth and cruel poverty and needs to be superseded by non-carbon alternatives if the world is to survive. A highly satisfying, instructive and ultimately frightening read.

Boş okunmaya değer olmayan bir kitap, veya bana hitap etmedi bilmiyorum fakat zaten bildiğimiz şeyler bunlar.

Rachel Maddow is a celebrity journalist, a good one. I enjoy her work 90% of the time. She loves to do history & sometimes does it well. Over the course of the past year, however, her attention has been divided among many subjects. She did an excellent podcast on Spiro Agnew, that I listened to from start to finish (even though I only very rarely take the time for podcasts). She has her nightly show, densely packed with content & usually revelatory, occasionally featuring unusual guests who contribute immensely to understanding. But then she also found time to do this book. I was excited. However, having read the book, I am underwhelmed. It's a gloss, sometimes an inaccurate gloss, on important subject matter. The material is useful, but the omissions are actually glaring & kind of shockingly elided. Example: summarizing what led to the rise of the criminally corrupt Kremlin crisis we see today, that brought about the attack on US political life, in just a few pages, is not a good idea. Too much is left out. Masha Gessen is quoted a lot, being apparently the source of the "digest of recent Russian history" -- although, frankly, Khodorkovsky is readily accessible; Nemtsov's daughter, Anna, is accessible; Garry Kasparov has written some brilliant books on the subject -- and the result is something so limp, so quaintly secondary-school level, that it does not do the job claimed. Understanding the Russian oil industry of today, including its claimed right to help raze Syria, requires understanding both the Soviet-era oil export industry much more than Gessen (who apparently was the researcher?) bothers to, while also factoring in what happened in Baku in the 19th c., when Russian capital & imperial enthusiasm helped fuse a lot of other interests, that Gessen never mentioned to Rachel, into the current global petroleum corporate architecture. Face it, not just the Rockefeller's but 100s of other socially-prominent 19th century households (including the British Royal Family, so closely attached to their own Russian cousins, who were of course early investors in Baku) shaped the oil industry of today, with all its wrongs as well as all its positives. And they remain vested in it. That is never once mentioned, considered or explained in "Blowout." It's like, "Rockefellers" and then "Putin." The role of Yeltsin's "privatization czar," Chubais, is never once mentioned. Yeltsin is presented as almost a charming man who was seduced to join the dark side, instead of actually having been a pawn of those interests from the start, when the Bushes -- as they themselves later boasted in the Atlantic -- chose to back him over the more scrupulous, non-moneygrubbing Gorbachev. More comprehensive, detailed histories of the oil industry are available from Amazon. They are not hard to read. I simply don't think Rachel Maddow had enough time, given the other things she was doing, to read her own book carefully and to consider the questions it does not answer. It may feel patriotic for an American to start by celebrating Rockefeller, but that, too, is a gross oversimplification. This book will not help anyone understand why Iran is a major player in the global oil markets (answer: because of Baku), nor Venezuela, nor Mexico. It says many useful things, occasionally saying them well (gratuitous profanity should have been edited out), but it leaves too much out. It feels rushed. I would not recommend it to the specialist or the serious student of history. I would not recommend it to people who love good writing, or excellent journalism. I would not recommend it to fans of Rachel Maddow. I would recommend it only to people who want to start somewhere in their study of this important industry that shapes our social & economic reality today, but only if they promise to read other, more comprehensive books, as well, faithfully, as I am doing. At this very moment, if you want to help the planet, there are more important books. If you want to help America, there are more important books.

Rachel Maddowの本なので、ロシア陰謀説に走るのを恐れていたが、そのようなことは全くなく、事実に基づいた内容となっている。だから米国アマゾンでの評価が高いのでしょう。 よく調べていて、個人レベルのエピソードも多いので、面白さが増している 基本的には ・プーチンがどのようにして石油・ガス利権を掌握したのか ・米国におけるシェールガスブームの影響（特にオクラホマ） ・Rex Tillersonとプーチンの関係 が大きな柱。 似たような本は他にもあるかもしれないが、逸話の部分が面白いので、楽しく読めた。

Great book, well written and very easy reading and exceptional information