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It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil and the Fight for the Planet
UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIAL
Michael Moore rakes America’s corporate villains over the coals. Noam Chomsky flays the United States for the hypocrisy of its global adventurism. Now comes Linda McQuaig, whose incendiary new book tells us how the world’s most powerful industry and history’s most lethal army are having their way with the planet.
McQuaig’s scathing and razor-sharp assaults on fiscal policy ( Shooting the Hippo ), Free Trade ( The Quick and the Dead ), and the Canadian tax system ( Behind Closed Doors ), have won her a legion of dedicated readers. In It’s the Crude, Dude she turns her attention to a truly planetary the cataclysmic effects our addiction to oil is having on our environment and our ability to co-exist in the world.
Nothing could be more urgently relevant.
Since its emergence as the first truly global industry in the early twentieth century, Big Oil has wielded more power than most governments over world politics and the global economy. And now, more than ever, it has a champion in U.S. President George W. Bush, whose Republican party received millions of dollars in donations from the oil industry and whose administration is stacked with former oil executives, including its all-powerful vice-president.
And yet the idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq to secure this strategically important and highly valuable resource is strangely taboo in the mainstream media. It is practically shouted down whenever mentioned. Instead, we are asked to believe that the U.S. invaded Iraq for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything whatsoever to do with a desire to gain control over the most lucrative untapped oilfield on earth — even as dwindling worldwide reserves threaten to turn competition for crude into the major international battle of the future.
In the end, that conflict may be dwarfed by another even more momentous disaster-in-waiting. Over the past two decades, it has become clear that the planet is getting warmer, and that emissions from fossil fuels are largely to blame. The scientific consensus on this — developed in the most comprehensive international peer-review process ever undertaken — is overwhelming. As surely as smoking causes cancer, gas-guzzling SUVs are hurrying us towards global climate change. In the face of this potentially devastating threat, the world has moved with unprecedented speed to try to head off disaster. Only a small group is resisting. But in its ranks are the most powerful corporations on earth, well connected to the most powerful government on earth. The outcome of this titanic struggle — the world versus the oil lobby — will likely determine nothing less than the future viability of the planet.
McQuaig’s research, analysis, and eye for detail combine to produce a riveting tale about the battle over oil that shapes our times and will determine our future. Readers of all political stripes will find this book provocative and impossible to put down.
Michael Moore rakes America’s corporate villains over the coals. Noam Chomsky flays the United States for the hypocrisy of its global adventurism. Now comes Linda McQuaig, whose incendiary new book tells us how the world’s most powerful industry and history’s most lethal army are having their way with the planet.
McQuaig’s scathing and razor-sharp assaults on fiscal policy ( Shooting the Hippo ), Free Trade ( The Quick and the Dead ), and the Canadian tax system ( Behind Closed Doors ), have won her a legion of dedicated readers. In It’s the Crude, Dude she turns her attention to a truly planetary the cataclysmic effects our addiction to oil is having on our environment and our ability to co-exist in the world.
Nothing could be more urgently relevant.
Since its emergence as the first truly global industry in the early twentieth century, Big Oil has wielded more power than most governments over world politics and the global economy. And now, more than ever, it has a champion in U.S. President George W. Bush, whose Republican party received millions of dollars in donations from the oil industry and whose administration is stacked with former oil executives, including its all-powerful vice-president.
And yet the idea that the U.S. invaded Iraq to secure this strategically important and highly valuable resource is strangely taboo in the mainstream media. It is practically shouted down whenever mentioned. Instead, we are asked to believe that the U.S. invaded Iraq for a variety of reasons, none of which has anything whatsoever to do with a desire to gain control over the most lucrative untapped oilfield on earth — even as dwindling worldwide reserves threaten to turn competition for crude into the major international battle of the future.
In the end, that conflict may be dwarfed by another even more momentous disaster-in-waiting. Over the past two decades, it has become clear that the planet is getting warmer, and that emissions from fossil fuels are largely to blame. The scientific consensus on this — developed in the most comprehensive international peer-review process ever undertaken — is overwhelming. As surely as smoking causes cancer, gas-guzzling SUVs are hurrying us towards global climate change. In the face of this potentially devastating threat, the world has moved with unprecedented speed to try to head off disaster. Only a small group is resisting. But in its ranks are the most powerful corporations on earth, well connected to the most powerful government on earth. The outcome of this titanic struggle — the world versus the oil lobby — will likely determine nothing less than the future viability of the planet.
McQuaig’s research, analysis, and eye for detail combine to produce a riveting tale about the battle over oil that shapes our times and will determine our future. Readers of all political stripes will find this book provocative and impossible to put down.
384 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2005
6 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Linda McQuaig
26 books79 followersDescribed as ‘Canada’s Michael Moore’ by the country’s National Post, Linda McQuaig is an award-winning investigative reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star. She is the author of seven Canadian bestsellers, which have earned her a reputation as a fierce critic of the establishment.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 4, 2025
A very entertaining read, and I appreciated the history of OPEC politics.
August 29, 2013
My hardcover edition has a different cover sleeve than this image. Mine is similar to the Canadian paperback edition cover image.
Since I read this book in 2013, long after the events proved the Bush/Cheny/Rumsfeld lie about WMD. I always felt it was really about the crude, but of course, that is easy to say now. I am quite sure that the history books will eventually show what a slimy trio they really were.
Since I read this book in 2013, long after the events proved the Bush/Cheny/Rumsfeld lie about WMD. I always felt it was really about the crude, but of course, that is easy to say now. I am quite sure that the history books will eventually show what a slimy trio they really were.
March 6, 2011
I must say that I thought I knew it all when it came to first picking up this book, but the intricate details of Anglo-American/OPEC politics really was well done and verifies for me many of my feelings about Western hegemony, globally. Well written and snarkily argued! GGB
March 20, 2007
very interesting book, although it doesn't provide any ground breaking information... it's easy to read, written much like her newspaper articles.
May 24, 2021
An excellent account of middle eastern affairs. If you want to read about middle east, oil and US, this is the place to start.
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January 13, 2018Pretty amazing insights into how 'big oil' tries to manipulate events to benefit their interests, often to the detriment of the people and the nations on whose land the oil was discovered.
I think it's even more relevant now, with the discovery of a substantial oil find in Guyana, a nation which has suffered from bad governance in the past despite an abundance of natural resources.
I think it's even more relevant now, with the discovery of a substantial oil find in Guyana, a nation which has suffered from bad governance in the past despite an abundance of natural resources.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews