Maddow, Rachel

A noted MSNBC anchor traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis.

"Rachel Maddow's Blowout offers a dark, serpentine, riveting tour of the unimaginably lucrative and corrupt oil-and-gas industry. With her trademark black humor, Maddow takes us on a switchback journey around the globe-from Oklahoma City to Siberia to Equatorial Guinea-exposing the greed and incompetence of Big Oil and Gas. She shows how Russia's rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia's rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the United States, and the West's most important alliances. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, but ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson emerge as two of the past century's most consequential corporate villains. The oil-and-gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers. But being outraged at it is, according to Maddow, "like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can't really blame the lion. It's in her nature.""--.

Identifying what the author believes to be a battle between the priorities of civilian life and the war, the host of the critically acclaimed The Rachel Maddow show explains that today's focus on national security is actually compromising national stability, tracing the historical events and contributing factors that have promoted a deeply militarized American culture.