Oil makes the world work, but it destroys many of those who produce it.

Crude World offers a passionate look at the countries where oil is extracted, and follows the journey of oil, showing how it poisons the land and rivers, promotes political bloodshed, creates corruption on a staggering scale, and rarely offers the people either wealth or freedom. Instead, oil benefits only the companies and governments that will do anything to sustain the flow of money.

From Nigerian fishermen to Moscow oligarchs, from American generals in Iraq to environmentalists in Ecuador, from British executives to Saudi jihadists, Peter Maass illustrates exactly how our passion for oil is so deadly.