Poisoned Review
Aug. 5th, 2007 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHi,
So I just finshed reading Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil by Nicholas Shaxson. Another in my on-going series of "Africa is screwed" books.
I liked the book, but I think that Untapped was probably better. Mr. Shaxson does take a different approach to describing the problem. Rather than focusing on one country after another, the way that Untapped did, he combines a biography of his experiences as a freelance reporter and with profiles of prominent individuals within African oil states to show exactly what's been going on there and how it's broken down. He also focuses on a couple of players outside of the immediate African sphere, such as the Russian businessman who helped the Angolan government defeat the rebel insurgency in the area and the French magistrate who exposed the French government's secret neocolonialism projects carried out by the French oil company ELF.
Fascinating stuff. But a lot of it seems rooted in the early 90's and while it explains a lot about what's going on today, it doesn't quite paint a current picture.
Mr. Shaxson also frames the problem not of Bad Foreign Oil Companies or Evil Dictators (although they certainly have a raft of crimes to pay for), but focuses on the flow of international money. Globalization and Free Trade have made it possible to do business anywhere, but international controls to follow the flows of money (from legal and illegal sources) just hasn't caught up. Simple transparency is only part of the solution, legal frameworks to act on what transparent financial operations expose is the other key piece.
Anyway, if you had to choose, I'd take Untapped, but for further reading, I'd certainly recommend Poisoned Wells.
later
Tom
So I just finshed reading Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil by Nicholas Shaxson. Another in my on-going series of "Africa is screwed" books.
I liked the book, but I think that Untapped was probably better. Mr. Shaxson does take a different approach to describing the problem. Rather than focusing on one country after another, the way that Untapped did, he combines a biography of his experiences as a freelance reporter and with profiles of prominent individuals within African oil states to show exactly what's been going on there and how it's broken down. He also focuses on a couple of players outside of the immediate African sphere, such as the Russian businessman who helped the Angolan government defeat the rebel insurgency in the area and the French magistrate who exposed the French government's secret neocolonialism projects carried out by the French oil company ELF.
Fascinating stuff. But a lot of it seems rooted in the early 90's and while it explains a lot about what's going on today, it doesn't quite paint a current picture.
Mr. Shaxson also frames the problem not of Bad Foreign Oil Companies or Evil Dictators (although they certainly have a raft of crimes to pay for), but focuses on the flow of international money. Globalization and Free Trade have made it possible to do business anywhere, but international controls to follow the flows of money (from legal and illegal sources) just hasn't caught up. Simple transparency is only part of the solution, legal frameworks to act on what transparent financial operations expose is the other key piece.
Anyway, if you had to choose, I'd take Untapped, but for further reading, I'd certainly recommend Poisoned Wells.
later
Tom
