Natural resources empower the world’s most coercive men. Autocrats like Putin and the Saudis spend oil money on weapons and repression. ISIS and Congo’s militias spend resource money on atrocities and ammunition. For decades resource-fueled authoritarians and extremists have forced endless crises on the West – and the ultimate source of their resource money is us, paying at the gas station and the mall. Blood Oil goes behind the headlines in search of the hidden global rule that puts shoppers into business with the men of blood. Readers discover an ancient rule that once licensed the slave trade, apartheid and genocide. The abolition of this rule marked some of humanity’s greatest … Continue reading Leif Wenar