The Secret World of Oil

March 24, 2014
Corrupt dictators with a penchant for boiling their adversaries, shady fixers who know just the right palms to grease, unctuous lobbyists in smoke-filled rooms—the global market for oil is not known for its cleanliness, political or environmental. Silverstein, a former editor at Harper’s, collects a number of his previously published profiles of the colorful characters inhabiting this ecosystem. Lightweight and entertaining, these sketches are suitably salacious, but, for the most part, expose relatively little about oil per se. Teodorin Nguema Obiang, son of the ruler of Equatorial Guinea, loves his cars, and “when he saw gawkers stop to admire” his two-million dollar Bugatti at a nightclub, he sent his chauffeur “back to Malibu by cab so could drive back his second Bugatti to park next to it,” but his graft is actually confined to selling off his country’s rainforest; slightly less ostentatious relatives control the oil. Bretton Sciaroni, a legal hack fired by the Reagan administration for his unseemly defense of unlimited executive authority, went on to work for the junta in El Salvador and Hun Sen in Cambodia, but this has nothing to do with oil. Silverstein’s muckraking will appeal to progressive interests, but oil itself does not tie this motley collection together.

March 1, 2014
Energy journalist Silverstein's study of the routinely corrupt but immensely profitable world of oil "fixers." When it comes to democratic nations conveniently turning a blind eye to the human rights violations of dictatorial regimes around the world that also happen to be rich in oil, we're not talking about a new story. Where Silverstein's debut breaks new ground is through the exposure of the oil "fixers"--the middlemen serving as the all-important connection governments and corporations need for gaining a foothold in countries where there are newly exploitable oil resources. Silverstein's book, however, is not only about these so-called fixers, but also about the corrupt dictators making billions of dollars from selling their country's energy resources while putting nothing back into their respective economies. The "stars" of the book, so to speak, are dictators such as Equatorial Guinea's Teodorin Obiang: The details of Obiang's vast, oil-soaked wealth and ridiculously excessive playboy lifestyle are dizzyingly unreal and almost inhuman; he also advocates torture and murder in his own country. Yet, since banana republics like Equatorial Guinea have become oil-rich nations with American corporations on their soil, the American government has only paid lip service to these countries' excessive human rights violations. Of the fixers, Silverstein spotlights kingpins like Ely Calil, who made untold millions from shady dealings with the Nigerian government. Just as importantly, he outlines the dirty deeds of peripheral figures such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his gun-for-hire PR business, which routinely propped up countless amoral Third World dictators with big-oil connections. Silverstein writes with keen reportorial objectivity but also understandable skepticism about these sketchy middlemen and the frighteningly tyrannical hold that oil has on the free (and not-so-free) world. The book's revelations make Wall Street corruption seem tame by comparison.

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June 15, 2014

Journalist Silverstein's (fellow, Edmond J. Safra Ctr. for Ethics, Harvard Univ.; The Radioactive Boy Scout) intimate familiarity with Washington, DC; the oil industry; and the key players within the global oil trade makes this title a fascinating read. The book is cleverly divided into sections about those who heavily influence the oil market--fixers, dictators, traders, gatekeepers, flacks (press agents), lobbyists, and hustlers. These businessmen operate in backrooms and out in public, and they do so with authority and with efficiency--when convenient for themselves, of course. Silverstein's investigative work depicts business being bigger than government, all while operating under its protection. After completing this book, readers will have a much keener sense of how, and why, wars are started and oil prices fluctuate. VERDICT Required reading for students of economics and those who would like to become more educated on the large net of global companies and governments that dictate the oil markets. A well-written, informative narrative.--Meghan Dowell, Beloit Coll. Lib., WI

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