Blowout is an absolutely chilling political commentary delineating the connections between the insanely profitable oil and gas industry, Russian government, big business, and the US government. Released 1st Oct 2019 by Crown, it's 370 pages and available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

Rachel Maddow is renowned for her biting commentary and no 'BS' political essays/podcasts/shows. More often than not, my political and philosophical feelings align with hers, so it's not really a surprise that in most ways, this book shocked, dismayed, and enraged, but didn't surprise me. Whether or not the reader agrees with her, the meticulous research and build-up of her exposition isn't really up for dispute. She knows what she's talking about and she builds up the connections step-by-step. This attention to detail means that the first half of this book can feel slow...but by the time she ties the disparate threads together, the extrapolated conclusions are foregone.

This was a difficult read for me. It's very easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless. The current news cycles spin at whiplash speed and I know more people who feel burnt out and disgusted (and apathetic) about the state of the political and commercial landscapes than who don't. The point that the author makes (and does so compellingly) is that more and more, the alliances which are the tectonic plates moving society and controlling life as we know it are not ones of political alliance or stateship, but commercial entities which owe allegiance only to the ridiculously wealthy men controlling them and making alliances across previously forbidden geopolitical lines. She puts it succinctly enough, "Powerful enemies make for big, difficult fights". I just hope we have enough energy and intelligence left to fight.

Five stars. Definitely a sure bet for people who enjoy intelligently written nonfiction.

When I finished Blowout by Rachel Maddow, I had to wash all the residual oil slick off my skin. The book is just that immersive in the oil industry. Not to mention a different kind of Kremlin-based, Putin-esque oiliness. Wow, this book contains nothing less than a gusher of information.

Blowout is sub-titled Corrupt Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth. I started it hoping to better understand the messy state of 2019 politics. I got that, and then some. As Maddow has been saying on her show, the timing of this book’s publication is uncanny. There’s plenty about Ukraine and its fractured relationship with Putin in Blowout.

But its deep background starts with the origins of the oil industry and moves into detailed biographies of many industry power players. Maddow discusses Oklahoma, OKC, earthquakes, the 1995 bombing, and the titans who make or break its economy. If she does a deep dive here, she goes even further into the background of Russia’s oil industry and its oligarchs (AKA gangsters). Most importantly, she explains what it means to have only one viable global industry in a kleptocracy.

Since November 2016, reading about the politics of the current Russian state seems critically important. So far, this is the first book explaining the industry that strongly ties our two countries together, for better or worse. In one country, the government owns the oil and gas industry. And in the other, the oil and gas industry influences the government to its benefit. And if you don’t know which country is which now, Blowout makes it crystal clear.

My conclusions
Despite Maddow’s use of fact after researched fact, Blowout retains the tongue-in-cheek chattiness of her television show. Yes, definitely expect snarky asides or exclamations. The straight-up scholarly information is balanced by how she breaks down a complex situation into something easy to digest. That is, if you don’t mind your hydraulic fracking with a substantial side order of corruption.

Because of her unique writing style, I zipped through this nonfiction tome. Okay, having a nasty cold helped—I took a few days off and read a lot. But don’t be concerned it’s dry. It’s not. Maddow uses a narrative, almost novelistic, approach to this true-life story. It’s extremely readable. Or change it up, and switch to the excellent author-narrated audiobook. I did both, but ultimately found that highlighting passages was more important than hearing Maddow’s familiar vocal intonations.

Impressing all my friends and family with facts and history I learned in Blowout sounds fun. Right before I buy them their own copy for the holidays. It’s an important topic that is likely to be timely for some years to come. Please give it a go.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to NetGalley, Crown Publishing, and the author for the opportunity to read a digital ARC in exchange for this honest review.

"Powerful enemies make for big, difficult fights. But you can't win if you don't play."

Despite the star rating, I feel like "big, difficult fight" sums up this book pretty well. This isn't necessarily a diss; the book is meaty and comprehensive, and Maddow does as good a job breaking everything down and explaining it as she does on her talk show.

But I sometimes feel like that the act of explaining these huge issues in such simple terms makes us feel like there are solutions that are also simple and yet completely out of our grasp to change. (Have you ever wanted to shake an entire state - I mean more than the fracking earthquakes already did - to try and knock some sense into it?)

This is a vitally important look at a corrupt and catastrophic industry, and Maddow enlivens the narrative with her sharp wit and, when called for, incisive anger. It is <i>a lot</i>, but "you can't win if you don't play."

Unsurprisingly, Maddow's books, especially this one, are like her TV show, more specifically the openings on her TV Show. The book isn't always linear, but, it also unfolds in a way that does make sense.

It's all about the oil and gas, but, as the book goes along, it's like all these other things, feeder roads, and a ton of them, are all hooked into the big oil and gas superhighway.

I've never heard it put in a way like the 'Resource Curse' either, but, that phrase does work perfectly (and depressingly) for what goes on in so many of these countries (and United States states sometimes).

Oh, and if you're not a fan of Russia at this point in time, you'll most definitely love this book.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to Random House Publishing Group Crown Publishing.

If you are like me you never thought about the gas/oil industry. The only time I have a connection with gas is pumping gas into my car. I never give it another thought. It's a shame because we should think about the oil/gas companies' accountability and corruption that goes on here in the United States, but also abroad(Russia).

I have been anticipating the book, Blowout by Rachel for months since I heard about it. The book is timely after we learned what is going on between the US President, and the Ukraine phone call. Rachel explains Russia is a poor country. Who is Putin? How did he get into power? It doesn't make any sense if their economy is rich in oil. Why is it not trickling down to the citizens of Russia? What is the oil and gas industry connection with Russia? Why is Russia attacking Ukraine? US elections? What is with the oligarchs? What is the connection between oil, and gas, and Russia? Why are the big oil companies so interested in Russia? It's the oil in the Kara Sea. Russia thinks it needs the oil companies to extract the oil out. Do they really need them as much as they think? How is Ukraine connected to all this? What do SANCTIONS in the EU, have anything to do with it? What does it have to do with the US? And US elections? These are the questions, and answered in Blowout.

PLENTY! Because Russia relies on other countries for their goods. If they are sanctioned other countries can't work with them. Russia is hoping to convince Trump to lift sanctions. That is the bottom line. Putin didn't realize interfering in our elections would work so well. It did better than expected. One thing I will say, I thought it was suspicious that every link to Trump had a finger from Russia. Was that coincidence? Flynn, Manafort, Page, and the list goes on, and on...It was also strange that Stein, an independent presidential candidate was in Russia.

The book is not so much about the gas companies themselves. But the corruption that goes along with the connections of the countries and big gas corporations. What happens to certain countries when they deal with one economy, gas. The countries that only rely on gas to make money always end up corrupt. That is what happened to Russia, and Saudia Arabia, for example.

It also opened up my eyes from years ago when I was a kid. At the time most of what the gas/ oil companies didn't affect me because I was a young kid. Well, I was wrong. It knows has bitten me in the butt. It has come back to haunt me, and the rest of the world( climate change). We can blame our parents, and the government then. But, blaming doesn't do much, action will. We had warnings by scientists reporting that the techniques pulling oil and gas out of the ground were not a good idea. But, because there wasn't enough outcry. The companies still extracted the oil. There is so much information in the book it overwhelms you at times. I just brushed on a few.

The best part of the book is what happened to the state of Oklahoma and the gas industry. Oklahoma was allowing the gas industry to extract oil out of the ground. The process of taking the oil out was causing not just a few earthquakes, but many for a few years. There was one certain scientist that was warning the state. Finally, the state had enough, they did something about it. They made the gas companies accountable.

As most of us who watch Rachel on her show, The Rachel Maddow Show. She is a storyteller and likes to mix humor into her storytelling. She likes to tell us about history, and the background info. before she talks about a certain topic. You can tell Rachel did her homework and research. I don't know how she did with her day job. I hope you will pick up the book. I will say you can't read the book at only a few sittings For me it was overwhelming and easier for me to read only a few chapters at a time instead of big chunks.

Thank you, Rachel, for opening my eyes. Thank you, Random House, and Netgalley for allowing me to review.

This is a great informative read from Rachel Maddow. I could not put this down and highly recommend this to anyone.

It amazes me how much of the United States' power and money has been wrapped up in oil. From the original oil Barron, John D. Rockefeller, to the most recent ones (Vladimir Putin, Kings of the Middle East, and CEOs of petroleum companies), these men have bartered and traded patriotism for money and power.

Rachel Maddow's book, <i>Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth, looks at this history and delves into the history of oil and the corruption it has left in its wake in the United States and around the world.

In many ways, Maddow's book is scarily timely as we deal with politics and problems in the age of Trump and Putin. I would highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to understand how the United States has found itself in the modern quagmire that it has.

I had not read Maddow's previous book, so I wasn't quite sure what her writing style would be. Her prose is both engaging and interesting. She has the ability to pack a lot of facts into a narrative that is easy to read. In many ways, Maddow's book is a graduate course in oil politics.

I want to thank the publisher for letting me read this book prior to publication. Although I am thankful for the publisher's generosity, my opinion of Maddow's book is 100% mine.

When you watch Rachel Maddow she tells a story. She takes a story from history and makes it relevant to whatever is happening now. This book is timely and does just that. If you didn't know better, you'd have thought she wrote this in the last month or so. It brings together current events and analyzes them in a way even the most casual news observer could understand.

I thought I should read Blowout by Rachel Maddow. Should being the giveaway word to my motivation. Instead of a dose of medicine that's good for me but hard to swallow, it was a terrifying funhouse ride that totally engaged my attention! Maddow weaves together a narrative of how we 'got to here' that illumines the present.

Maddow lays out the oil industry's history from Standard Oil to fracking to Putin's dream of Russia becoming the world's fuel provider to trolls on Facebook disseminating discord.

The oil industry has always been too big and wealthy and powerful to control, starting with John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil which drove out or took over the competition. The values have not changed; anything goes in the pursuit of increased production and mindboggling wealth. And power. Don't forget the obscene power.

The oil industry has always looked for better ways to get to the oil, using nuclear bombs and ocean drilling and fracking. Sure, messes happen. The best clean up tool they have developed is a big stick of paper towels.

Fracking was going to save the day! Years worth of 'clean' gas. So what if Oklahoma suffered 900 earthquakes in 2017?

I didn't know how Putin had gambled everything on the fossil fuel industry bringing Russia money and power across the globe. But they needed the technology to make it happen. And Rex Tillerson and Exxon/Mobile were planning to help him. Those pesky sanctions got in their way.

Business and capitalism is amoral; politics and justice and fairness are irrelevant. The prime directive is making money. You lobby for the best tax deals, pay workers the lowest wages possible, make deals with the Devil--if you are killing people, or the entire planet, cover it up and carry on making the big bucks.

The damage fossil fuels are doing to the planet is happening NOW, has been happening for a long time before we wised up to it. It isn't just when we take a jet or when we eat a half-pound burger or drive the kids to school. Getting that gas out of the ground it escapes. Lots of it. From the get-go, fossil fuels damage our world.

Maddow writes, Coal is done, and so is gas and oil but they don't know it yet.

Oh, the last desperate gasps of the old world struggling to hold on.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The history of the oil and gas industry and how it has permeated politics, trade relations and more is chronicled in BLOWOUT, by Rachel Maddow. Maddow starts with Rockefeller and the beginning of the oil industry and continues through the beginning of the Trump administration. Maddow covers the environmental impacts of the industry, the greed and narcissistic dominance that breeds from oil and gas, and the political highs and lows that have crossed paths with desire to be master of oil and gas.
Maddow does an excellent job of providing historical texture to each facet of the oil and gas industry. From the history of Oklahoma City and the state of Oklahoma, to the creation and evolution of the magnates in the industry, to the foreign, specifically Russian, approach to oil and gas collection and all of the right and wrong ways they went about it. Maddow's black humor and harsh criticism of industry and political leaders is clear; she uses those tools to point out the absurdity that all of the greed and naricissism that the industry creates. One of the best aspects of the book is the description of fracking; how it works, the benefits of it and if done improperly, the multitude of problems it creates.
Well-written and compelling to read, BLOWOUT fosters a greater understanding of the entire industry and while there are moments that Maddow is clearly making her opinions known, the core of the book is refreshingly unbiased and factual.

I had high expectations for Blowout and they were not disappointed. Maddow has a sober, straight-forward but very engaging approach to telling a story, and I was rapt from beginning to end, coming out of it feeling I had learned something new. Definitely recommended!

Each night after turning off The Rachel Maddow Show this past week, I would settle down for a few chapters of Blowout.
Rachel has provided me a roadmap thru the Trump years. Without her unraveling the intricate threads of the this presidency, I never would have been able to have an overall sense of our current national nightmare. I'm not sure where she found time to pull together the whole energy story, but it is certainly part and parcel of the larger trends driving out (multinational/national) politics. The book is an easy read. Rachel's voice rings true throughout - I'm treating it as a survival guide for the years to come. MUST READING!

I have to admit that though I love Rachel Maddow, this book was way too scholarly for me. It is very detailed in its presentation and I got lost in the finer points. I cannot imagine how much research went into writing this book. She is just a genius!
If you want to know all about the oil industry including their dirty deeds, you would enjoy this book.
Thank you to Net Galley for supplying the e-book for my reading.

A depressing subject. These current books are becoming harder for me to stomach and bring on such gloom for me. But I've been listening/watching/reading Rachel since the Bush era. She as good still as she was then.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.

Rachel Maddow does not disappoint. This book goes after the oil and gas industry. It goes into details about the industry going from fracking and how they do it and what it does to the political intrigue in both the US and Russia. Sometimes there are almost too many details that become tedious but I could not stop reading. Revelations that were, to me, amazing. Everyone should read this book.

Blowout! :Corrupted Democracy, Rouge State Russia, and The Richest, Most Destructuve Industry on Earth
by Rachel Maddow
due 10-1-2019
Crown
5.0/5.0

#netgalley. #Blowout

What the Frack is going on with the oil and gas industry? How did we, as a Democratic country, get to this point? Regardless of age, sex, race, religion, political beliefs, etc., how did we become dependent on a global industry built on corruption, greed and incompetence?
Rachel Maddow brings it all together and makes this complicated issue, easy to understand. She explains the power, complexities, and political gamesmanship behind fracking. How Yeltsin literally gave the Russisn Presidency to Putin, and how and why Putin used the oil industry to maintain his power, by sending the crude oil to its biggest oil rival, the USA.
From Oklahoma City to Russia to Siberia and Equatorial Guinea, we see how oil and the crude pollutants from fracking, made by unsafe drilling; an industry that has taken far more from the earth than it ever gave. ExxonMobil and Rex Tillerson are examples of the mindless incompetence that make full transparency necessary. We hold the responsibility of separating the corporate from the villains.

Aubrey's Chesapeake Energy-Oklahomas earthquake outbreak of 2010 due to fracking-the Alaskan drilling fiasco- the Winter Olympics at Sochi in 2014 and Pussy Riot- Guccifer. It's all here, and so essential to understanding exactly what is happening, and why.

One of the things I admire and live about Rachel Maddow is how she will lay a foundation by sharing the history and importance of issues, policies and subjects. By explaining both sides, we can decide for ourselves where we stand without being preached at and told what to believe. Her wit, candor, humility and her original spin, for me, make her a woman who uses her intelligence to make people aware, for the greater good. This book is an example of just that.
I learned so much about the oil industry, the consequences of non transparency and the willingness to deceive to win.
Mostly I learned we need to re-think the need vs. the greed of oil.
Thank you for this exceptional, necessary and timely book, Rachel.

Thank you to netgalley for sharing this requested e-book ARC for review.

This story of insatiable greed on the part of self-serving, uncaring people drunk on money and power demonstrates how the oil and gas industry fuels politics around the world, and plays a central role in the attempts by Vladimir Putin to sow discord in the West and control Washington.

Rachel Maddow, known from her news show on MSNBC, is more than a media pundit: she received her undergraduate degree in public policy from Stanford and a doctorate in political science from Oxford University. The information in her book is meticulously researched and documented.

She carefully weaves together connections between oil executives in the U.S. and oligarchs in Russia. Putin has put all his eggs in one basket for the success of Russia: oil and gas. But his control of the industry is based on “graft, financial manipulation, and violence as needed,” rather than expertise, so he needs the West to achieve his aims. Western companies - in particular, ExxonMobil - have been more than willing to ignore Russia’s autocratic policies in exchange for the opportunity to get in on the lucrative potential for developing its untapped resources. And in fact, as Maddow points out, the oil companies share a number of traits with Putin, including a deep hatred for government regulation and a belief in the primacy of profits to the detriment of any deterrent, such as responsibility for wreaking “geopolitical and environmental havoc both at home and the world over.”

Maddow includes fascinating portraits of the people who run the energy businesses, and how they spend their vast fortunes. What choices do you make, for example, when your net worth is $162 billion or more? How much is necessary to make sure politicians vote your way? (No matter how much you spend, it’s worth it to get tax write-offs and eliminate any requirements for transparency. As Maddow notes, “U.S. taxpayer subsidies for oil and gas drilling are now almost literally insane,” and she gives numerous examples of how and why this is so.) How many houses and yachts do you buy, and what consideration do you have for the many people who deal with the toxic waste poisoning the air, land, and water, and even massive numbers of earthquakes you have generated? (Spoiler alert: none)

She also explains fracking, how and why fracking generates what has been called “earthquake swarms, and how it has put pressure on those in the energy industry to get on top of the curve.

Most importantly for American readers, Maddow shows what it actually meant to appoint the CEO of ExxonMobil to be Secretary of State; why the Russians were so eager to meet with, and offer support(both overt and covert) to the Trump campaign, and what it all had to do with oil and gas. (Hint: it’s all about removing the sanctionsthat impede further oil and gas exploration.) Putin, a former KGB operative, is always looking for “useful idiots” to exploit. The Trump campaign team offered plenty of them. Even the Trump Tower Moscow project was adversely affected by the sanctions. Maddow writes: “Mueller assessed [it] could have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump” if only he could get those pesky sanctions lifted. (Miraculously, sanctions have been - at least until now - protected by Congress, in spite of vigorous efforts of the Trump team to eliminate them.)

She also clarifies what Putin’s aggressive actions in Ukraine have to do with oil and gas - plenty, as it turns out, and how Putin managed to keep Europe and the United States mostly in check as he took what he wanted. (It was a lot easier after the Russia-friendly Trump Administration came into power.)

Using data collected from the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Maddow delineates, in perhaps her scariest chapter, how techies at a Russian troll farm - the “Internet Research Agency” north of St. Petersburg - disseminated misinformation via fake accounts by people working in two separate twelve-hour shifts - around-the-clock information warfare. As one adherent claimed (rightfully so, it must be said): “One hundred repetitions make one truth. The defenders of the truth can be overwhelmed by repeated lies.”

Putin’s trolls were told to focus on the most contentious and divisive issues in America and fan the flames. One of them later confessed: “Our goal wasn’t to turn Americans toward Russia. Our goal was to set Americans against their own government. To provoke unrest, provoke dissatisfaction.” In short, to set up a situation in which millions of angry, disaffected people might vote for someone who wanted to tear the system down from the inside, rather than act as a moral exemplar for the rest of the world. Analogous to the oil and gas industry, Maddow notes, Putin’s army of trolls “poured infectious waste” into the most ragged faults and fissures in Western democracy.

More tangibly, the Russians seeking to affect the 2016 election were aided by the oil and gas industry, which poured $152 million into the coffers of Republican candidates, compared to $21 million for Democrats. When the Republicans won all three branches of government, they began to dismantle any legal protections for consumers against the industry. They quickly repealed laws requiring clarification of payments by oil and gas companies to foreign governments and declarations as to actual tax payments and shelters. They also engineered America’s withdrawal from international agreements on transparency. Finally, they repealed as many Obama-era environmental protections as they could manage, a project that is ongoing.

What can we do? Maddow posits:

“Containment is the small-c conservative answer to the problem at hand - democratically supported, government-enforced active and aggressive containment. … Powerful enemies make for big, difficult fights. But you can’t win if you don’t play, and in this fight it’s the stakes that should motivate us: Democracy either wins this one or disappears. It oughtta be a blowout.”

Evaluation: I felt like I needed a shower after each chapter, reading about the greed and corruption that characterizes the oil and gas industry around the world, and how politicians have been bought off to protect the system. But I think it is critical for Americans to understand not only how this industry has distorted the democratic process, but how the Russians have successfully roiled the waters in the West, and continue to do so. If we don’t gain awareness and get inspired to take grassroots action to protect democracy, there may be nothing left to protect.

Another fascinating and eye opening read by my favorite anchor/reporter/ hero. An important addition to her previous book this one focuses on the oil and gas industries. Russia, Tillerson Exon Mobil are all exposed and it’s a mouth gaping account of corporate greed, lies and how we need to act now, before it’s too late.

Rachel Maddow has written a brillant eye opening book full of details important truths.A well researched book .#netgalley#crownboojs,

If you are familiar with Maddow's podcast "Bag Man" about former vice president Spiro Agnew and like her sense of history and narrative style, I'd recommend this book. It gives some nice background into the personalities and organizations that are affecting the state of our union today.