Oil and Cobras


This is nice. The New York Times Sunday Book Review runs a positive review by Michael Hirsh, a Newsweek correspondent who describes Crude World as “powerfully written.” Hirsh adds that the book “teaches us an old lesson anew: that the true wealth of nations is not discovered in the ground, but created by the ingenuity and sweat of citizens.” I agree! And I like the illustration, featuring a cobra, that accompanies the review.

If printed words are not enough for you, I’ll be a guest on Leonard Lopate’s NPR program on Monday (as they say, check your local listings for showtimes), and afterwards I’m doing a reading at Half King in New York on Monday night. On Wednesday evening I’ll be reading at Politics & Prose in DC, and on Thursday I’ll be back in New York for a reading at Barnes & Noble. For details, click here or go to the list of “Upcoming Events” at the sidebar on this page.

Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.