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| IMPRESSIVE. METICULOUS. Black's impressive analysis, which included looking at more than 50,000 original documents and hundreds of scholarly books and articles ... explains why the West's record in the region so complicates nation-building there today ... Many readers may find the breadth of analysis too ambitious.
Richard A. Clarke Washington Post Book World |
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| POWERFUL. EVOCATIVE. TAUT. Edwin Black’s powerful new study … is solid and evocative throughout. For those interested in business history, his study of the relationship between commercial and political interests, especially the company that eventually became British Petroleum, is well worth the price of admission. There’s also ample material to draw from to consider the future path of Iraq ... Black is committed, if not obsessed, with hyper-intensive research and documentation. His books are copiously footnoted and referenced. Given the seriousness and scope of the subjects, this is an absolute necessity.
Richard Pachter Miami Herald |
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| A GIFT FOR RESEARCH. In British Petroleum and the Redline Agreement, Black again brings to the table his considerable gifts for research and the teasing-out of a complex nexus of relationships that sustains America’s and the world’s petroleum addiction. British Petroleum has long been nurtured by the wars in what is now Iraq. The oil platform disaster in the Gulf of Mexico brought to light for Americans its tangled web of deceit, shady diplomacy, and realpolitik.
Martin Barillas author EnergyPublisher.com |
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| CORRUPTION AND MACHINATIONS. The story of petroleum and oil exploration should be one of entrepreneurial glory. Instead, the more we learn about the corruption and machinations employed by British Petroleum and its industry cohorts, the more we realize that we have been the victims of an addictive, war-made subjugation for over 100 years.
Marc J. Rauch The Auto Channel |
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| FASCINATING HISTORY. What a fascinating history ... Black tries to show that the reason so much attention has been paid to Iraq, especially in the modern era, is its oil. He does so fairly convincingly.
Adam Daifallah Montreal Gazette |
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| A GRIPPING STORY. The author has a wonderful ability to turn historical events, obscure to most Western readers, into a gripping story ... The standard of scholarship is excellent.
Patrick Clawson author Middle East Quarterly |
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