The story of Black Gold, a winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Nigeria is the sixth largest producer of oil in the world and one of the major suppliers of oil to the US. Set against a backdrop of what has been called the scramble for African oil, this text documents the consequences of a half-century of oil exploitation and production in one of the world's foremost centres of biodiversity.

It is estimated that Americans consume more than 25 percent of the world's oil but have control over less than 3 percent of its proven supply. This extremely unbalanced pattern of consumption makes it possible for foreign governments, corrupt political leaders, terrorist organizations, and oil conglomerates to place the citizens of the United States in a stranglehold of supply and demand. There is no greater proof of this than the direct relationship between skyrocketing gas prices and the exploding wealth of those who control the supply of oil. In Black Gold Stranglehold, Jerome R. Corsi and Craig R. Smith expose the fraudulent science that has been sold to the American people in order to enslave them: the belief that oil is a fossil fuel and a finite resource. On the contrary, this book presents authoritative research, currently known mostly in the scientific community, that oil is not a product of decaying dinosaurs and prehistoric forests. Rather, it is a natural product of the earth. The scientific evidence cited by Corsi and Smith suggests that oil is constantly being produced by the earth, far below the planet's surface, and that it is brought to attainable depths by the centrifugal forces of the earth's rotation. In great detail Corsi and Smith explore the international and domestic politics of oil production and consumption. This includes the wealth and power of major oil conglomerates, the manipulation of world economies by oil-producing states and rogue terrorist regimes, and the political agenda of radical environmentalists and conservationists who obstruct the use of oil reserves currently controlled by the U.S. government. The authors offer an understanding of the dangerous situation America faces because its currency is no longer tied to any precious and truly scarce metals such as gold, as it was until 1973. This situation could easily lead to the devastation of the U.S. economy if Middle Eastern countries are able to enact current plans to accept only the Euro or gold-backed currencies such as the Gold Dinar instead of the U.S. dollar as the standard currency for oil. Black Gold Stranglehold will dramatically change the debate about oil. The significance of its message is sure to cause thoughtful people to reconsider the current dependence of the U.S. economy on imported oil.

Looks at the life of Jimi Hendrix and his previously unknown recordings, rare film and video performances, rare recorded collaborations, and memorabilia.

The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace for decades, bastions of civilization, prosperity and sophistication, protected by treaties, trade and a belief in the reasonable nature of their neighbors. But meanwhile, in far-off corners, the Wasp Empire has been devouring city after city with its highly trained armies, its machines, it killing Art . . . And now its hunger for conquest and war has become insatiable. Only the aging Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see that the long days of peace are over. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people, before a black-and-gold tide sweeps down over the Lowlands and burns away everything in its path. But first he must stop himself from becoming the Empire's latest victim.

Oil is not pretty, but it is a resource that drives the modern world. It has made fortunes for the lucky few and provided jobs for millions of ordinary folks. Thick and slippery, crude oil has an evil smell. Yet without it, life as we live it today would be impossible. Oil fuels our engines, heats our homes, and powers the machines that make the everyday things we take for granted, from shopping bags to computers to medical equipment. Nations throughout the last century have gone to war over it. Indeed, oil influences every aspect of modern life. It helps shape the history, society, politics, and economy of every nation on earth. This riveting new book explores what oil is and the role this precious resource has played in America and the world.

Black Gold and Blackmail seeks to explain why great powers adopt such different strategies to protect their oil access from politically motivated disruptions. In extreme cases, such as Imperial Japan in 1941, great powers fought wars to grab oil territory in anticipation of a potential embargo by the Allies; in other instances, such as Germany in the early Nazi period, states chose relatively subdued measures like oil alliances or domestic policies to conserve oil. What accounts for this variation? Fundamentally, it is puzzling that great powers fear oil coercion at all because the global market makes oil sanctions very difficult to enforce. Rosemary A. Kelanic argues that two variables determine what strategy a great power will adopt: the petroleum deficit, which measures how much oil the state produces domestically compared to what it needs for its strategic objectives; and disruptibility, which estimates the susceptibility of a state's oil imports to military interdiction—that is, blockade. Because global markets undercut the effectiveness of oil sanctions, blockade is in practice the only true threat to great power oil access. That, combined with the devastating consequences of oil deprivation to a state's military power, explains why states fear oil coercion deeply despite the adaptive functions of the market. Together, these two variables predict a state's coercive vulnerability, which determines how willing the state will be to accept the costs and risks attendant on various potential strategies. Only those great powers with large deficits and highly disruptible imports will adopt the most extreme strategy: direct control of oil through territorial conquest.