Blood of the Earth by Dilip Hiro
China is now the world's second largest energy consumer, trailing only behind America. And India has moved up into the fourth place behind Russia, after overtaking Japan in 2001. Dramatically changing the geopolitics of oil in the new century, China and India are rapidly expanding their navies as they become increasingly dependent on lines of oil tankers from the Middle East, posing the beginning of an eventual challenge to American hegemony in the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. But while competition for oil sharpens - the world is approaching the projected peak oil output in 2012 - the number of countries able to export the commodity is shrinking. Those countries will be largely Muslim, or like Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, hostile to Western interests. The potential shortage of oil sets the stage for the coming oil wars of the 21st century.
'It's all about the oilWhat is? Pretty much everything, in Hiro's encyclopaedic yet racily readable account of the economy, science and geopolitics of oil over the past century ... The text is spiced with flavoursome tableaux of first-hand reporting, from Azerbaijan to New York City. It will annoy some readers, and refresh others, that Hiro doesn't make any artificial attempt at "balance". He robustly defends Hugo Chavez, who has irritated the US no end in recent years, and gleefully writes subheadings such as "Rice's Astonishing Ignorance" to recount how Condi, a former director of Chevron, claimed in 2006 to be amazed at how the politics of energy was "warping diplomacy around the world". In the face of global warming, he argues finally, we have no choice but to embrace all alternative energy sources at once.' Steven Poole, Guardian, 3 May 2008.
Dilip Hiro is the author of Secrets and Lies: The True Story of the Iraq War and most recently Iran Today. He is a celebrated journalist, commentator and the author of over fifteen books on the Middle East.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781842751954 |
| ISBN 10 | 1842751956 |
| Title | Blood of the Earth |
| Author | Dilip Hiro |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Methuen Publishing Ltd |
| Year published | 2007-10-08 |
| Number of pages | 416 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |