Crude Awakening

September 5, 2011
Alaska: land of the free and home of the oil-crazed? In this dramatic political saga, Coyne and Hopfinger, cofounders of the news site AlaskaDispatch, illustrate the relationship between oil companies and politics from 1968, when wildcatters first struck oil, to Sarah Palin’s ascent to the governorship. Without “crude,” the authors write, “Alaska’s future would become unimaginable. Crude would make everything that was about to happen to Alaska possible: wealth and corruption, growth and environmental degradation, soaring hopes and fading dreams. Alaska’s best known leaders—Sarah Palin and Ted Stevens—were born out of oil.” And in turn, the state’s bounty fueled America—and the ambitions of Sarah Palin. Often with a free indirect style, the authors chronicle the triangular relationship between Palin, Stevens, and oil mogul Bill Allen: we are introduced to Palin’s supposed thoughts, “Would she be stuck in this shabby office... for all that time?” It’s a juicy portrait of power and corruption, although Palin is portrayed cartoonishly as a heartless, conniving villain. Still it’s an engaging, well-drawn political history that initiates a necessary conversation on Alaska’s future now that the old-guard leaders like Stevens and Palin are gone, the Arctic is melting, and pervasive “corruption has been exposed.”

October 1, 2011
Two political reporters comprehensively yet somewhat sensationally explore Alaska's oil situation amid a heady scandal and the ever-evolving pageantry of Sarah Palin. Alaska Dispatch co-founders Coyne and Hopfinger happily sink their teeth into their home turf's oil and politics conundrum, whittling away at 40-plus years of corruption and obfuscation. They focus their intensive scrutiny on three "larger-than-life" figures "born out of oil" in the 2006 corruption scandal: former senator Ted Stevens, retired oil executive Bill Allen and resigned Alaskan governor Sarah Palin. With authoritative prose, the authors backtrack to the late '50s, when Alaska was more concerned with its fishing and mineral trade. Alaska's 1968 "marriage to Big Oil" would permanently change the state's direction, and Stevens would play an integral part in that change. His involvement in the dissolution of environmental and social impediments to an oil pipeline paved the way for a legislative career mired in controversial alignments and governmental scandal. The authors write that Allen, armed with minimal education and welding experience, upheld a laundry list of felonious business dealings with oil barons and deceptive politicians as a founder of VECO Corporation, Alaska's largest oil contractor. His actions earned him a stint in federal prison while, years earlier, a young, idealistic Palin ambitiously climbed the Wasilla political ladder, banked questionable campaign contributions from VECO and launched a much-lampooned series of foibles including an abruptly ended governorship that showed her "thin skin and hubristic ambitions." Throughout, the authors paint Alaska as an environmentally blessed, aesthetically promising land, which makes the detailed corruption and its dark outcome that much more contemptible. None of the three subjects deserve any sympathy, and Coyne and Hopfinger keep them all (Palin especially) squirming under their journalistic thumbnail. A probative, merciless examination from an Anchorage-based dynamic duo with an ax to grind.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 15, 2011

Politics is said to be a volatile, sticky, primordial, black muck. So is oil. Coyne and Hopfinger (cofounders, AlaskaDispatch) give us the rundown, via three particular Alaskans, on the murky politics of oil in Alaska, a state that refuses to tax its citizens, instead obtaining 80 percent of its revenue from its oil industry. Despite its image as a land of self-reliant folks a la Thoreau, Alaska is really the land of leveraging "other people's money," which, the authors argue, breeds thievery. The book portrays a gang of state legislators who jokingly called themselves the "Corrupt Bastards Club" happily accepting oil industry bribes and cozying to their sugar daddies. Bits of their story seeped into the national consciousness as background to the rise of Sarah Palin. The authors complete the canvas. Exposed by the FBI, down went U.S. Senator "Uncle Ted" Stevens and other kleptocrats--most to jail (Stevens was convicted, but the indictment was dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct). The alleged Stevens corruption catapulted Sarah Palin into the governor's mansion as a reformer in 2006. VERDICT Ably and temperately told by authors who know Alaska (where this reviewer has lived), this is a valuable study to understanding the Last Frontier, the oil business, or Palin--particularly if she gets into the 2012 race.--Michael O. Eshleman, Kings Mills, OH

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.