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  • Blowout

  • Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth
  • By: Rachel Maddow
  • Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
  • Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (60 ratings)

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Blowout

By: Rachel Maddow
Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
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Publisher's Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Award-winning American news presenter Rachel Maddow investigates remarkable stories from around the globe, all leading back to the same crooked source: the unimaginably lucrative and equally corrupting oil and gas industry. 

From Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington to Kyiv, Siberia, and Moscow to Equatorial Guinea and Alaska, from a mansion in Malibu with the world’s largest collection of Michael Jackson memorabilia to luxury hotels in central London, from deep within the earth’s crust to the icy surface of the Arctic seas, Blowout uncovers a web of international corruption. 

With her trademark black humour, Maddow takes us through the purposeful detonation of a 50-kiloton nuclear bomb underground near Colorado, man-made earthquakes, murdered cows and the international financial crisis, to the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas and a surprising conclusion about why the Russian government hacked the 2016 US election. Chevron, BP and a host of other industry players get their star turn, most notably ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson. 

The oil and gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, 'like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can't really blame the lion. It's in her nature'.

Blowout is a call to contain the lion: to stop subsidising the wealthiest businesses on earth, to fight for transparency and to check the influence of the world's most destructive industry and its enablers. The stakes have never been higher. As Maddow writes, 'Democracy either wins this one or disappears'.

©2020 Rachel Maddow (P)2020 Penguin Audio

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Excellent story

Excellent story, there is so much more to tell. Is awfully grim.

It’s a battle I worry about.

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Amazing

My 1st audiobook ever. Was skeptical at the start,loved it.
Always been a fan of hard copy books, however have to admit this was really good.

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Excellent

Brilliant book. albeit disturbing content. What a bonus - the book is read by the author Rachel Maddow. One of the best books I’ve read and definitely the best narration of heard on audible. This book is like doing a degree in modern history, but reads like a novel. Nice work Rachel Maddow. Deserves its status as a best seller.

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Enjoyed it all the way through!

Captured every sense of the oil industry’s ludicrousness.

The treat was that Rachel narrated it. It was as if she was talking to me directly, in a low key coffee shop about her research. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Loved it

Okay… so Russia owns Russia.
While… American individuals with billions own America.
This book is such a great listen / read…
alas it continuously disappoints me that American born political commentators who have deliberately educated themselves in the best Universities in the world, continue the need to punish American citizens eligible to vote, by constantly reminding them publicly in the media, digitally, and on paper that it is the extremely comfortably wealthy Americans that decide the future not their votes of democracy.
So the beauty of Russia is that without extreme wealth you will be treated like everyone else, unlike America where you will be treated differently according to your colour, race or creed.
Thoroughly enjoyable recap of Russian / US profit before the people of the past 50 years, I am definitely looking forward to listening to Bag Man and the Drift.
Thank you Rachel Maddow for your words and eloquent narration, much appreciated. :-)

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