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Blowout
- Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
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Blowout
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
Award-winning American news presenter Rachel Maddow investigates remarkable stories from around the globe, all leading back to the same crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry.
From Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington to Kyiv, Siberia, and Moscow to Equatorial Guinea and Alaska, from a mansion in Malibu with the world’s largest collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia to luxury hotels in central London, from deep within the earth’s crust to the icy surface of the Arctic seas, Blowout uncovers a web of international corruption.
With her trademark black humour, Maddow takes us through the purposeful detonation of a 50-kiloton nuclear bomb underground near Colorado, man-made earthquakes, murdered cows and the international financial crisis, to the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas and a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 US election. Chevron, BP and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson.
The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, 'like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can't really blame the lion. It's in her nature'.
Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidising the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency and to check the influence of the world's most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, 'Democracy either wins this one or disappears'.
What listeners say about Blowout
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- Kathleen E McCabe
- 30-11-21
another deep dive with one of our best journalists
recommended for those interested in all aspects of the fuel crisis. Long but certainly worthwhile
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- Sören
- 23-08-20
Best book in a long time
How will this end, I hope the new green deal will have support in the future so the world can leave the oil and gas extraction that is such a threat on so many levels.
Excellently narrated.
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- (Hon) R. Franklin
- 03-01-21
Wow! What a great ,compact expose of misfeeds!
Rachel's narration contributes greatly to a real page-turner partial expose of an industry that could do with allot more scrutiny .
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- Alex DAnna
- 14-09-21
Entertaining and Informative
Really enjoyed this book Rachel Maddow has penned a winner linking Putin and Rex Tillerson and the Trump Administration in a clear and meaningful way. Hope we can turn around the Climate catastrophe before it’s too late.
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- Honest review
- 23-05-20
Powerful read.
A must read for all users of petrol and gas that's everyone. You cannot say anymore that you don't understand what's behind our energy business. On humanity, health, moral and survival grounds we need to consider a greener energy solution. I highly recommend this informative and fancinating read. Thanks.
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- Randallllll
- 17-06-22
breath of fresh air I think
Rachel, more please. keep going, your story telling and first class narration is absolutely brain fodder and well appreciated. Want to know the truth? Here it is. Good luck to all of us voters though scrutinising and controlling what their up to.
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- TomE 24
- 19-09-22
An absolute Blowout of a book
Regardless of your stance on her work to date, Maddow expertly demonsrates the destructive tendencies of an entire industry and its capture of democracies, foreign and domestic. Extraordinarily prescient of the predicament in which the Western world finds itself today.
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- Riann Smith
- 15-04-21
incredibly informative and yet riveting.
I didn't know I'd find the recent history of the oil and gas industry so fascinating. The geo political impact of non-renewable energy supply is mind blowing.
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- Louisa larsen
- 12-07-23
Blistering!
absolutely compelling, super intelligent and entertaining. I loved this, and her last book so much.
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- Greta Evans
- 18-02-20
Wow..Rachel Maddow doesn't fail to deliver
I feel like I've not only learned more that I ever could have about Oil (which was surprisingly very interesting)...but that I've been on a journey around the world whilst doing so. Very informative. Explained in Rachel's usual detailed way and easy to understand. I never knew the true extent to the oil businesses and how it affects democracies around the globe. Oil equals rich people who often take take take but I feel now fully informed about the lives of the rich and powerful, the poor and needy, the level of corruption and the lack of accountability and basic lack of moral compass in those working in this field. Love learning new things and this has not disappointed. Putin has pissed himself by Pussy Riot a surprise as well as the spies living together, the BP oil spill ,Chesapeake, the IRA, the Sochi labour workers, Rex Tillerson to Michael Jackson's crystal glove. There is so much more in this book and one for Rachel Maddow to be very proud of indeed.
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3 people found this helpful