Crude by Sonia Shah
Crude is the unexpurgated story of oil, from the circumstances of its birth millions of years ago to the spectacle of its rise as the indispensable ingredient of modern life. In addition to fueling our SUVs and illuminating our cities, crude oil and its byproducts fertilize our produce, pave our roads, and make plastic possible. "Newborn babies," observes author Sonia Shah, "slide from their mothers into petro-plastic-gloved hands, are swaddled in petro-polyester blankets, and are hurried off to be warmed by oil-burning heaters." The modern world is drenched in oil; Crude tells how it came to be. A great human drama emerges, of discovery and innovation, risk, the promise of riches, and the power of greed.Shah infuses recent twists in the story with equal drama, through chronicles of colorful modern-day characters -- from the hundreds of Nigerian women who stormed a Chevron plant to a monomaniacal scientist for whom life is the pursuit of this earthblood and its elusive secret. Shah moves masterfully between scientific, economic, political, and social analysis, capturing the many sides of the indispensable mineral that we someday may have to find a way to live without.
Sonia Shah is an award-winning science journalist and the author of Pandemic: Tracing Contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, which was a nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the New York Public Library Award for Excellence in Journalism. She has contributed to publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others. More than one million individuals around the world have watched her TED lecture, Three Reasons We Still Haven't gotten Rid of Malaria. She resides in the city of Baltimore, Maryland.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781583226254 |
| ISBN 10 | 1583226257 |
| Title | Crude |
| Author | Sonia Shah |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Seven Stories Press,U.S. |
| Year published | 2004-09-07 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |