Product Description

Nigeria is a country where petroleum and polio have both boomed, where small villages challenge giant oil companies, and scooter drivers run their own mini-state. The crude-rich Niger Delta region at the heart of it all is a troublespot as hot as the local pepper soup. Through a host of characters, from the Area Boy gangsters of Lagos to the civil war general with a penchant for 19th century British poetry, Peel tells the story of this extraordinary country and how it has been shaped by the oil that pumps through western cities. Weaving reportage, oral history and investigative journalism, Peel illustrates the dark side of the global oil economy, and the unseen consequences of reckless resource extraction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12801 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
'A compelling and well-written account. In this long awaited book, Peel has told the history of Nigeria and oil in a way that makes this important subject accessible to all. In doing so, he has done a service to everyone who is interested in development and in Africa' --Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate, Economics, 2001

'...a compelling journey through the oil-filled chaos of present-day Nigeria' --Louis Theroux

'A fascinating insight into Africa's wild west' --Giles Foden

About the Author
Michael Peel is a Financial Times journalist who has developed a fascination with west Africa, oil and financial crime especially when the three are combined. The genesis of A Swamp Full of Dollars was Peel's stint between 2002 and 2005 as the FT's west Africa correspondent, based in Lagos, Nigeria. He has since returned several times to the oil-rich region to research his book. Peel has been with the Financial Times since 1997. In 2000 he won a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust traveling fellowship to report on multinationals and the environment in Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and eastern India. Since 2006 Peel has been the FT's legal correspondent, covering, among other things, corporate corruption and other aspects of financial crime. His reporting from Africa has appeared in various publications, including The New Republic, the London Review of Books and Granta magazine.

Customer Reviews

Oil and Troubled Waters
Michael Peel, the former West Africa correspondent for the Financial Times, has written a fascinating book. Part travelogue, part insight into big oil and the multinationals that produce and market it, the book is also a story of admiration for Nigeria with all its chaos, corruption and injustice. Peel travels the (often dangerous) world of the Niger delta where Shell, AGIP Chevron and other companies are tapping one of the more important reserves of crude oil in the world. The light, sweet crude is readily refined into petrol and there are considerable reserves in nearby Sao Tome, Gabon and Cape Verde. Yet the vast oil revenue that has come to the Federal Government (and the states) of Nigeria has done little to raise the living standard of the poor people who live in the delta. Quite the opposite, in fact. Pollution from the oil and the disinclination of the oil companies to clear up have turned the delta into something of a wasteland. And the story of theft by successive Nigerian government officials is staggering. Yet at the end of his story, Michael Peel is optimistic. Nigeria is a new country; its injustices and problems and abuses of power are more open, more blatant but in a way more honest. Legitimacy is really longevity, as it is in the West. People in newer countries can offer fresh ways of thinking and a hunger for reform. As the need for oil grows, and the need for this reformation, we shall surely hear a lot more about Nigeria.