Crude Intentions

"""Alexandra Gillies has written an essential primer on the new world order, in which kleptocrats are hijacking the global economy. She writes with the courage and insight of someone who has spent many years infuriating those kleptocrats. Crude Intentions is comprehensive: it needs to be, given the oil industry's scorched-earth approach to the truth. Yet at times it reads like a crime thriller. Gillies shows us how, from Goldman Sachs to Goodluck Jonathan, Rosneft to the Republican Party, the corruption pandemic has spread worldwide. Her book pulses with a spirit not of despair but of action: don't let them get away with it."" -- Tom Burgis, author of The Looting Machine ""This is a superlative book by one of the stars of the effort to investigate the opaque and dangerous world of oil corruption. The practices laid out here are widespread. Her section on the United States demonstrates that wealthy countries aren't just the beneficiaries of corrupt money: it undermines their democracies too. And, as a glance at the U.S. states of West Virginia or Louisiana, or Alberta, Canada testifies, it leaves 'sacrifice zones' in those countries just as it does in Nigeria or Brazil. Gillies concludes with some common sense approaches to addressing this peril."" -- Sarah Chayes , author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security ""This extraordinary book brings together the most outrageous cases of how corruption in oil, gas, and other extractive industries contaminates the world. Having dealt with the gory details and catastrophic costs of corruption for more than a quarter century as leader of Transparency International (TI), I was so fascinated by this brilliant record of the grim reality and often heroic defense against it, that I could hardly stop reading. Yes, the spectacular cases presented in great detail for Brasil, Malaysia, Nigeria, the United States and other countries are depressing, even when their discovery and sanction gives some hope and sense of progress. The credit for these international wins goes to the interaction of governments, business, civil society, and the media-a conclusion shared by TI and other multi-stakeholder approaches to fighting corruption. "" -- Peter Eigen, Founder and Advisory Council Chairman, Transparency International (TI) ""Readers will be gripped by a disciplined and magnificent exploration of the vast landscape of kleptocracy in resource-rich countries. Literatures on corruption tend to be voyeuristic, but what we encounter here is the sensitive management of facts and an affective concern for the communities Gillies writes about. These two factors, plus a healthy ethical intellectual imagination, ultimately liberate this hugely important book from the voguish predilection to merely tickle and jeer."" -- Dapo Olorunyomi, Publisher of Premium Times, Nigeria ""We live in a golden age for kleptocrats. The governments and firms that control the supply of petroleum-the world's most valuable commodity-have enjoyed 20 years of windfall profits. In this gripping, deeply-informed, book, Alex Gillies reveals the intricate deceptions, unwitting enablers, and extravagant fraud that has turned this oil into staggering wealth, power, and corruption. This is a uniquely enlightening book with a wealth of insights about how these crimes happen and what we must do to fix them."" -- Michael Ross, Professor of Political Science, UCLA, and author ofÂThe Oil Curse"