Leif Wenar, “Blood Oil: Tyranny, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World” (Oxford UP, 2016)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Mar 2, 2016 · 1h 2m

Chances are that at this very moment, you are either looking at a computer screen, holding a digital device, or listening to my voice through plastic earphones. Our computers and these other devices are constructed out of materials that have their origins in lands across the globe. And oil plays a central and early role in the causal story of how we came into possession of them. Oil also plays a leading role in the major global conflicts of our day. Much of the world’s oil is sold to us by brutal tyrants who use the monetary proceeds to strengthen their tyranny. But it is arguable that…