It will inform your view of Rex Tillerson, Trump's Secretary of State. In fact, I think it is imperative for global citizens to really understand her point for democracy, ours in particular, everyone else's actual or aspired, and those whose leaders threaten it.

'I just finished 'Blowout' by Rachel Maddow and I highly recommend it. As Maddow writes, “Democracy either wins this one or disappears.” It’s in her nature.” Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidizing the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency, and to check the influence of the world’s most destructive industry and its enablers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, “like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. She deftly shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the West’s most important alliances, and the United States. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe, revealing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas along the way, and drawing a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 U.S.

Unlikely as it might seem, there is a thread connecting these events, and Rachel Maddow follows it to its crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry. And in 2014, Ukrainian revolutionaries raided the palace of their ousted president and found a zoo of peacocks, gilded toilets, and a floating restaurant modeled after a Spanish galleon. That same year, a trove of Michael Jackson memorabilia-including his iconic crystal-encrusted white glove-was sold at auction for over $1 million to a guy who was, officially, just the lowly forestry minister of the tiny nation of Equatorial Guinea. Big Oil and Gas Versus Democracy-Winner Take All “A rollickingly well-written book, filled with fascinating, exciting, and alarming stories about the impact of the oil and gas industry on the world today.”- The New York Times Book Review In 2010, the words “earthquake swarm” entered the lexicon in Oklahoma.2021 GRAMMY® Winner for Best Spoken Word Album #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Rachel maddow blowout