Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World

I met the author and was intrigued. The book is a complete eye opener about how oil is “in” just about everything. I strong recommend reading this book.

Great book for awhile. Goes on and on and on ...

Well written, carefully thought through discussion of our current shared planetary conundrum we have gotten ourselves into.

This book was very informative. Author did his homework & gave great opinions based on the facts.

All too often philosophers stop short worrying about problems at a theoretical level. Blood Oil takes a foundational problem of rights and sees it through in great detail into the world in which we live and works through the ramifications there of. Written in an engaging and conversational style the authors walks us through detailed analyses of how our unthinking behavior is making the world a much worse place than it needs to be and how through conscious efforts, using existing legal apparatus and international frameworks, we can right this wrong and see justice for billions who presently suffer at the hands of oligarchs and despots. Read this book! You will be better for it.

IT is an extraordinary book

Excellent historical perspective. Literate societies handle money well while feudals go crazy.

A masterpiece

Thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about global oil production and it's effects.

A very detailed book, the author is clearly a subject matter expert and so the book can be a bit heavy at times. The author does present a lot of factual information to backup his idealogy, however, some of his information is glossed over and assumptions made when the facts are less prevalent.That said, it is still an excellent book. This isn't a doomsday book, but it can be a bit gloomy at times, however, Leif Wenar expertly highlights the problem facing the current globalisation of oil and a subsequent global economy that is so reliant on oil, for production, transit etc.The author also explains and highlights many other resources that we take for granted by describing the products lines the resources fulfill and how international corporations are managing to keep themselves insulated from regimes and militia that make human rights violation a way of life. Senior leaders at the UN would do really well to read this book as it describes vividly, how the poor African countries could grow their economy's by nationalising the vast resources the nations of Africa have available.For that alone the book is worth its weight in gold. (No pun intended.) The text is very detailed and often i find myself rereading parts of it to ensure I have understood it correctly.All in all though well worth the read.

This is a very long book.Unlike many books written about how to change the world, Leif Wenar is a realist. His thesis is (essentially) that pragmatism has led us to deal with unsavoury regimes to get the natural resources we need for modern life but that our interests and the interests of others would be better served if we did not fund kleptocracies by paying them for the goods they steal from their populations.Moreover, he claims this is not a revolutionary idea, but is a natural development following in the steps of the abolition of slavery and the ideas of universal human rights. He makes an excellent case.He sets out the best explanation I have seen of the resource curse - where countries with mineral or oil resources would seem best placed to bring their populations out of poverty, but are actually much worse than those countries that have had to rely on the education and hard work of their populations to grow.His observations on Saudi Arabia are particularly interesting. Whatever your ideological or religious views, it is noteworthy that the particular branch of Muslim thinking put forward by the leadership in Saudi Arabia has reached a much wider audience due to the £70bn education programme they have run around the world over the last decade. Whether you think that is a good or a bad thing, the reminder here is that the West chose to fund that programme by buying Saudi Arabian oil unconditionally.If you have a deep interest in global political issues, this is the book for you. If not, we can only hope that Leif Wenar brings out a popular version about a quarter of the length. The ideas here deserve a wider airing.

A deeply intelligent, focused book that is challenging, aggrieving and inspiring in equal measure. The author dissects that most important commodity in our modern global culture- literally it's lifeblood- and lays bare the corruption, political, economic, ecological, that underpins the capture and use of the resource. A great book that will stay with you long after you've finished reading it.

This book focuses on the oil rich countries, chiefly Russia and some middle-eastern states, and what they spend a lot of the revenue from its oil reserves on.This is a difficult subject rendered readable for a niche audience. It's sometimes a little slow, but that's largely due to the nature of the topic and the need for clarity.Overall this is an important work, and something of an achievement for its author.