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.

Ecuador’s 18-Billion-Gallon Valdez

In a ramshackle courthouse in Lago Agrio, an oil town in Ecuador, a precedent-setting lawsuit is nearing its end after more than a decade. Who is to blame for the environmental mess that was triggered by the discovery of oil in the 1960s? The plaintiffs, who live in the region, are seeking billions ... (Read more)

Slick: Steven Donziger Is Putting It to Big Oil

Outside Magazine
March 2007

The Front for the Defense of the Amazon, like any progressive group whose name includes front and defense, is a no-frills outfit with ample supplies of devotion and very little clout. Its opponents are, in size and power, what elephants are to gnats. They include Chevron ... (Read more)

Radioactive Nationalism in Korea

My latest essay, about the connection between North Korea’s nuclear weapons and nationalism on the Korean peninsula, is in this weekend’s issue of The New York Times Magazine. Click here or here.

Radioactive Nationalism: The Risky Maneuverings on the Korean Peninsula

The New York Times Magazine
October 22, 2006

In a classic Mexican standoff, two men point guns at each other’s heads. Neither wants to shoot, but each knows the downside of not pulling the trigger first. It is an inherently gripping situation, and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” ... (Read more)

Another Day in Baghdad

The Los Angeles Times publishes a sad and evocative story (registration required) by one of its Iraqi reporters, who writes about day-to-day life in his neighborhood. Now, not only ... (Read more)

Stuff Still Happens

Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about the looting that followed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, memorably replied that “stuff happens.” Three years later, stuff is still happening. Salam Pax, in his resuscitated but occasional blog (he posts only slightly more frequently than I do), has ... (Read more)

Samarra, a Year Later

Last year, I was embedded with the U.S. military in Samarra and wrote a cover story about the rather dismal situation there, with Iraqi and American forces fighting what seemed to be a dirty war. In a riveting ... (Read more)

The Price of Oil

As environmentalists in America battle to preserve a drilling ban in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, sensitive eco-systems in foreign countries are being drilled to provide oil for America. Is there a double standard at work, in which America outsources to less-fortunate countries the drawbacks ... (Read more)

The Price of Oil

The New York Times Magazine
December 18, 2005

More than 35 years ago, an offshore drilling rig spilled approximately three million gallons of oil into the waters near Santa Barbara. A massive slick covered hundreds of square miles and killed thousands of birds, seals and dolphins; the white beaches ... (Read more)

The Breaking Point

Can Saudi Arabia continue to supply the world with as much oil as it needs? I recently travelled to Saudi Arabia to find out whether a problem is on the horizon. The article I wrote, The Breaking Point, ... (Read more)