The Next Fix

Lara Pawson

  • Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil by Nicholas Shaxson
    Palgrave, 280 pp, £15.99, May 2007, ISBN 978 1 4039 7194 4
  • Oil Wars edited by Mary Kaldor, Terry Lynn Karl and Yahia Said
    Pluto, 294 pp, £17.99, March 2008, ISBN 978 0 7453 2478 4
  • Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil by John Ghazvinian
    Harcourt, 320 pp, $25.00, April 2007, ISBN 978 0 15 101138 4

African oil is sweeter and lighter than Middle Eastern crudes and in recent years it has begun to look increasingly desirable. For political reasons, it became especially attractive after 9/11, and today the US imports more oil from Africa than from the entire Persian Gulf. But there is competition: China now imports more than a quarter of its oil from African countries and Angola has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become its chief supplier. In Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil, Nicholas Shaxson argues that these developments are alarming. While the people who live in Africa’s big oil-producing countries are getting poorer and angrier, their leaders ‘have a rising tide of money at their disposal’ and are ‘fit for mischief’. He warns of a ‘cosy post-colonial complacency’ blinding Westerners to the fact that African oil isn’t a threat only to the people who live in the countries where it’s produced: it’s also ‘spreading poison deep into the fabric of the international financial system and the rich world’s democracies’.

You are not Logged In

  • If you have already registered login here
  • If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
  • If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
  • If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
  • If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions

Vol. 30 No. 3 · 7 February 2008 » Lara Pawson » The Next Fix (print version)
Pages 36-37 | 3582 words