Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil
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"Shaxson argues convincingly that the failed oil states of Africa will be the next Great Game in a world still addicted to oil and increasingly willing to fight for it. This book is a must read for anyone concerned about Africa and Big Oil. Shaxson's obvious love for the continent and its people comes clearly through in his writing but does not temper his revulsion at the complex and bloody mess he found there. He digs deeply to uncover the real story beneath the headlines and to eloquently explain an Alice in Wonderland world of money, corruption, war and intrigue. It is a story well told that has the power to stun even the most hardened observer of Africa's tragedy. Yet at the same time Shaxson powerfully describes people who have battled against the corrupt, the venal and the just plain evil, making a book that is often as inspiring as it is horrifying. Mixing the personal and political, he has written a compelling story that explains one of the most baffling riddles of the modern world: why has oil become a curse for Africa, not a blessing?"
--Paul Harris, US Correspondent, "The Observer" "Nicholas Shaxson has traveled to some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional nations on the planet, delved into the murky depths of the African oil business and emerged with a grisly but compelling tale of greed, corruption, and violence. There are still some who believe that oil can rescue Africa from poverty at the same time as saving America from its fatal dependence on suppliers in the Middle East. In this remarkable book, the fruit of years of painstaking research, Shaxson exposes oil as a destroyer, not a savior, of all that is best in Africa."--Victor Mallet, Asia editor, "Financial Times", and author of "The Trouble with Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia""" "This is a splendid book about a crucial subject. We need oil. We want the countries that sell it to us to be stable. But oil itself destabilizes them, unless they were mature democracies before they
--Paul Harris, US Correspondent, "The Observer" "Nicholas Shaxson has traveled to some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional nations on the planet, delved into the murky depths of the African oil business and emerged with a grisly but compelling tale of greed, corruption, and violence. There are still some who believe that oil can rescue Africa from poverty at the same time as saving America from its fatal dependence on suppliers in the Middle East. In this remarkable book, the fruit of years of painstaking research, Shaxson exposes oil as a destroyer, not a savior, of all that is best in Africa."--Victor Mallet, Asia editor, "Financial Times", and author of "The Trouble with Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia""" "This is a splendid book about a crucial subject. We need oil. We want the countries that sell it to us to be stable. But oil itself destabilizes them, unless they were mature democracies before they
Victor Mallet, Asia editor, Financial Times, and author of The Trouble with Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia
'...a grisly but compelling tale of greed, corruption and violence.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book introduces political and economic life in several West African countries. Each chapter focusses on a key individual - a top politician, a corruption busting judge, a top musician etc - and uses their tales to spell out why the relevant country has been held back rather than boosted by discovering oil.
With a light and engaging style (from having been a journalist) Shaxson lifts the lid on a heavy and disturbing subject - how oil revenues mess up the economics and politics of the countries where it is discovered. And not only those countries - the same money has oiled the wheels of dodgy political dealings in France and other countries.
The book ends with an analysis of the role of opaque offshore finance and some of the policy work and campaigning that is starting to tackle it. Highly recommended for people with an interest in international affairs.
With a light and engaging style (from having been a journalist) Shaxson lifts the lid on a heavy and disturbing subject - how oil revenues mess up the economics and politics of the countries where it is discovered. And not only those countries - the same money has oiled the wheels of dodgy political dealings in France and other countries.
The book ends with an analysis of the role of opaque offshore finance and some of the policy work and campaigning that is starting to tackle it. Highly recommended for people with an interest in international affairs.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Over the last years, as world oil prices increase and the quest for cheap energy is becoming more acute, there has been talk of the so-called "resource curse" or, in Thomas Friedmans' words, "the first law of petropolitics." This entails that with more money, leaders in oil-producing countries have the power to reifnorce themselves, suppress opposition, and disregard pressure for reform.
Mr. Shaxson is probably the most knowledgeable journalist on some of these subjects, and in this book, he gives an excellent insight to the practical causes and consequences of the resource curse in African countries. He writes passionately, and since he is not academic, the language is easily accessible; by his ways of explaining the situation in each country with use of a person (either the nepotist president of an African country, a corrupt oil-dealer, a French magistrate fighting corruption, or a human rights activist), he gives a more human face to the issue of oil that has damaged countries like Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Nigeria, Gabon, São Tomé & Principe, and whose globalised transatlantic tentacles has reached the highest offices in France and the US.
It is a book that shows the hipocrisies of the world when it comes to oil. Nevertheless, Mr. Shaxson has enough experience not to be preaching or naïve about it, and although he advocates for changes to the system that creates so much misery, and in his last lines of the book, he describes this well: "ExxonMobile likes to say that there is no resource curse, just a governance curse. This is like saying of a heroine addict with criminal tendencies that there is no drug problem, just a criminal problem. They are wrong: the heart of the matter is not rulers' corruption or companies' misbehavior but oil and gas itself. By hollowing out these junkie nations, intensifying competition and conflict between Africans, slowing economic growth, and silently corrupting western politics, it is aggravating some of Africa's worst problems, and stealthily spreading poison around our globalised world."
Mr. Shaxson is probably the most knowledgeable journalist on some of these subjects, and in this book, he gives an excellent insight to the practical causes and consequences of the resource curse in African countries. He writes passionately, and since he is not academic, the language is easily accessible; by his ways of explaining the situation in each country with use of a person (either the nepotist president of an African country, a corrupt oil-dealer, a French magistrate fighting corruption, or a human rights activist), he gives a more human face to the issue of oil that has damaged countries like Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Nigeria, Gabon, São Tomé & Principe, and whose globalised transatlantic tentacles has reached the highest offices in France and the US.
It is a book that shows the hipocrisies of the world when it comes to oil. Nevertheless, Mr. Shaxson has enough experience not to be preaching or naïve about it, and although he advocates for changes to the system that creates so much misery, and in his last lines of the book, he describes this well: "ExxonMobile likes to say that there is no resource curse, just a governance curse. This is like saying of a heroine addict with criminal tendencies that there is no drug problem, just a criminal problem. They are wrong: the heart of the matter is not rulers' corruption or companies' misbehavior but oil and gas itself. By hollowing out these junkie nations, intensifying competition and conflict between Africans, slowing economic growth, and silently corrupting western politics, it is aggravating some of Africa's worst problems, and stealthily spreading poison around our globalised world."
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this informative book, journalist Nicholas Shaxson looks at some African countries that have suffered the curse of foreign-owned oil - Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Gabon, the Congo Republic and São Tomé e Principe. In 1970, before the oil boom, 19 million Nigerians were poor; after $400 billion of oil earnings, 90 million (of a 130 million population) were poor.
Each week sub-Saharan Africa's oil fields produce more than $1 billions' worth of oil. But the oil money promotes not investment and development but capital flight and poverty. Greedy foreign oil corporations ally with corrupt rulers.
The struggle of rival imperialisms for oil strips Africa bare. In 2005 the USA imported more oil from Africa than from the Middle East, and it is intervening in Africa to control its supplies, as now with its illegal attack on Libya. Oil comprises 87 per cent of US imports from Africa. Angola is China's biggest source of imported oil.
France too is scheming and warmongering to keep its hold on Africa. France's former colonies have to keep two-thirds of their reserves in France's treasury. Their central banks' HQs are in Paris. Much EU `aid' funds French companies in Africa.
Shaxson also looks at the curse of tax havens. More than half of world trade passes through tax havens. Over half of all banking assets and a third of foreign direct investment by giant corporations are routed offshore. Terrorists and drug smugglers use the same offshore system that corporations use.
Offshore finance is centred on Britain, the EU and the USA. The City of London runs half the world's tax havens and holds more than $3.2 trillion in offshore bank deposits, half the world total. When the Labour government signed the UN Convention against Corruption in 2000, it exempted all the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories.
The West's banks, mainly from the USA and Britain, take their cut too. They force countries further into debt by making them take out new loans to pay off old ones, at ever higher rates. The bankers make private gains out of public losses.
Each week sub-Saharan Africa's oil fields produce more than $1 billions' worth of oil. But the oil money promotes not investment and development but capital flight and poverty. Greedy foreign oil corporations ally with corrupt rulers.
The struggle of rival imperialisms for oil strips Africa bare. In 2005 the USA imported more oil from Africa than from the Middle East, and it is intervening in Africa to control its supplies, as now with its illegal attack on Libya. Oil comprises 87 per cent of US imports from Africa. Angola is China's biggest source of imported oil.
France too is scheming and warmongering to keep its hold on Africa. France's former colonies have to keep two-thirds of their reserves in France's treasury. Their central banks' HQs are in Paris. Much EU `aid' funds French companies in Africa.
Shaxson also looks at the curse of tax havens. More than half of world trade passes through tax havens. Over half of all banking assets and a third of foreign direct investment by giant corporations are routed offshore. Terrorists and drug smugglers use the same offshore system that corporations use.
Offshore finance is centred on Britain, the EU and the USA. The City of London runs half the world's tax havens and holds more than $3.2 trillion in offshore bank deposits, half the world total. When the Labour government signed the UN Convention against Corruption in 2000, it exempted all the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories.
The West's banks, mainly from the USA and Britain, take their cut too. They force countries further into debt by making them take out new loans to pay off old ones, at ever higher rates. The bankers make private gains out of public losses.
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